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GAY'S SERIES OF STANDARD HISTORIES. 

FIRST SERIES. 

THREE GREAT MODERN NATIONS, 

FROM THE EARLIEST PERIODS TO 1884. 

\ ^ 'A * 

M. GUIZOTS 

Popular History of France, 



dr. david mullers 
History of the German People, 

CONDENSED, REVISED AND CONTINUED, BY J. H. BEALE, A.M., 

OUR GREAT REPUBLIC, 

AND THE EARLY DISCOVERIES, BY J. H. BEALE, A.M., 

! WITH A BRIEF HISTORY OF 

tl GREECE AND ROME 

AS. AN AID TO THE STUDY OF MODERN HISTORY. 



CHARTS OF ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY, LITERATURE AND AUTHORS, CONTEMyO- 

RARY SOVEREIGNS, STEEL ENGRAVINGS, CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES, 

INDEXES, MAP, ETC. EACH HISTORY COMPLETE IN ITSELF 

AJSn) SOLD BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY. 




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SUCCESSORS TO GAY BROTHERS. 







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THIE GREAT MODERN MM. 




'HE nations which have made the impress of their 
national character and achievements the most deeply- 
felt upon the condition of the world in the nineteenth 
century, are those which speak languages derived from 
a common stock. Conspicuous among these are the 
four which may be rightly designated the " great 
nations," the two branches of the English-speaking 
family, the French and the " Deutsche." By the strength of 
their national life, the development of their highest national 
type, the establishment of their national literature, and the 
importance of their national commerce as well as their influence 
in the councils of the nations they have affected the destinies 
of the entire world. Those nations which collectively are 
termed Christendom have filled the world with the glory of their 
arms, whitened every sea with their peaceful, commerce, and 
encircled the globe with the strong" bond of international law. 
In science, art, literature, the elevation of manhood and the 
advancement of human thought, they have led the van of the nations in 
modern times. For this reason their separate histories blend in one to make 
the general and united history of all a well rounded picture of human 
progress. 

In this American work the revised and condensed history of the typiq'^l 
popular historian in each nation is presented to the intelligent reader, ar 
there can be no doubt that this presentation of the annals which blend in oi 
narration will give the mind a broader scope of vision than if the prejudice 
judgment of any one man in either nation were devoted to the work of 
general history. M. Guizot is a writer of liberal views, from a French stam; 
point, and Doctor David Miiller from a German, while "Our Great Republic " 
has been prepared by an American writer who has taken pains to presei t 
the salient points of our national history from a patriotic, but not a partiss 
standpoint. 

We do not hesitate to claim for this work an excellence attained by n 
other publication in these respects. There is a continued and uninterrupte_ 
line of history of each country presented, in the main, by the natives of those 
countries who are in the deepest sympathy with the common people of each, 
and who, at the same time, have recognized abilities as literary writers. 
This then is a popular history in the best sense of the word, impartial in its 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

presentation of facts, accurate in its statements, and reliable in its chronology. 
The writers of each department are emphatically national without being 
bigoted or partisan, and for this reason their record is more trustworthy. 
French history is not distorted by the unkindly prejudice of German or 
English writers, nor exalted by the sympathy of an American, who naturally 
has kindly feelings toward that nation which aided his own in the early 
struggle for independence. The same is true of the others, and thus this 
work, when subjected to the critical examination of an intelligent mind, is the 
most valuable compendium of history ever presented within the compass of 
one volume. To all this there has been added by the American author a 
series of valuable chronological charts of historical events and of contempo- 
rary sovereigns, charts of American authors and literature, while many 
valuable tables and maps, make this a work unsurpassed by any and 
equaled by few historcal works presented to the American public, and 
therefore of inestimable value to the average reader and to the accurate 
student. Its excellence as a work of reference or for general reading is 
enhanced by the literary reputation of the several authors above mentioned, 
and in addition to these the classic essay of Lord Macaulay on " History," 
and the pages devoted to Greece and Rome, make this work in scope of 
design and method of execution superior to any so-called " History of the 
World " put upon the market at double the cost to the purchaser, and of less 
cost to the publisher, than this work. For it can be most readily seen that 
The History of the Three Great Modern Nations is so far interwoven with 
that of each and every other nation in existence during the period of their 
rise and development as to throw the intensest light upon the history of the 
world. It must also be borne in mind that this is the only history as yet 
published which brings the narration of national events to the present date. 

The above considerations, united with the efforts of the publishers ta 
make this series of histories attractive to the eye by first-class engravings oa 
steel and wood, and at the same time adapted to permanent use by superior 
paper, new type furnished especially for this book, substantial bindings and 
full and complete indexes of each history render this the most convenient, 
useful and reliable work of this kind yet put upon the American market. We 
therefore present this work to an intelligent public with full confidence that 
this effort to supply a line of popular histories, whose merit cannot fail to be 
duly appreciated, will meet with the success which it deserves. 




l.i^-a.'a- 



, ,r nj L E S (E CEl [E ^" ^a 

PRESIDLNTOFFRENCH'REPUBLICJ 



GAY'S SERIES OF STANDARD HISTORIES. 

FIRST SERIES. 

THREE GREAT MODERN NATIONS, 

FROM THE EARLIEST PERIODS TO 1884. 



M. GUIZOT'S 

POPULAR 



HISTORY OF FRANCE 



ABEIDGED, REVISED, AND CONTINUED BY J. H. BEALE. A.M., 



WITH COMPLETE INDEX, TABLES OF CHROTTOLOaiCAL EVENTS, PRINCIPAL FEATTTEES 
OP THE FEUDAL SYSTEM, AND GBO"W"TH OF THE FRENCH ARMY" TO THE 
TIME OF THE REVOLUTION. REVOLUTIONARY CALENDAR, 
MAPS, CHARTS, ETC. 



NEW HAVEN, CONN.: 

WILLIAM GAY AND COMPANY, 

SUCCESSORS TO GAY BROTHERS. 






3l 



.& 



M 




E. B. SHELDON & CO., 

r Compositors and Electrotypers, 
' New Haven, Conn. 



WILLIAM GAY & CO., 
Printers and Binders, 
New Haven, Conn. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

. Introduction v 

Sketch of M. Guizot vi 

Chronological Table vii 

Growth of the French Army xxi 

Principal Features of the Feudal System '. xxii 

I. The Gauls and the Romans 23 

II. Christianity in Gaul. — The Barbarians. — The Merovingian Dynasty. — Charlemagne 2& 

III. The Carlovingians. — Feudal France. — ^The Crusades 35 

IV. The Kingship, the Commoners and the Third Estate 47 

V. The Hundred Years' War 60 

VI. Louis XL — Charles VIII. — Louis XII. (1461 — 151 5) 73 

VII. The.Renaissance and the Reformation. — Francis I. and Henry II. (1515 — 1559). . 89 

VIII. The Wars of Religion.— Francis II. (1559).— Henry III. (1589) 106 

IX. Reign of Henry IV. (1589 — 1593). — Louis XIII., Richelieu and the Court 122 

X. Richelieu and Mazarin 138 

XL Louis XIV., His Foreign Policy, Successes and Reverses 155 

XII. Louis XIV. — Home Administration. — Literature, the Court and Society 170 

XIII. Louis XV., the Regency, Cardinal Dubois and Cardinal de Fleury (1715 — 1748)... 194 

XIV. Louis XV. — The Colonies.— The Seven Years' War (1748 — 1774). Literature and 

Philosophy 216 

XV. Louis XVI. (1778 — 1789). — Internal Policy. — France and America 248 

Note on Revolutionary Kalendar 270 

XVI. The Reign of Terror. — The Fall of Robespierre 272 

XVII. The Directory 280 

XVIII. The Consulate 284 

XIX. The Empire.— Napoleon 1 288 

XX. The Russian Campaign and the end of the Empire 295 

XXI. The Hundred Days and Waterloo 302 

XXII. Louis XVIII 308 

XXIII. Charles X 312 

XXIV. Louis Philippe 320 

XXV. The Revolution of 1848 33^ 

XXVI. The Second Empire 337 

XXVII. The New Republic 343 







M. GtnZOT. 



INTRODUCTION. 




'HE eminent French statesman and historian, M. GuiZOT, 
has become widely known to the EngHsh reading public 
through the translation of his many works into that 
language. His popular History of France to the 
Revolution of 1789 is taken as the ground work of this 
history. Indeed, it is in fact an abridgement of that remarkable 
work, and the most scrupulous pains have been taken not to 
deviate from the translation, except in a few instances where 
it appeared absolutely necessary for the purpose of con- 
^ densation. In his original work, M. Guizot has given very 
copious extracts from the picturesque pages of contemporary 
historians in the various periods. It would be absolutely impos- 
sible, of course, to incorporate all these in a work of this size. 
It has been our aim to retain instead of these the valuable reflections and 
observations of M. Guizot himself, and this volume is therefore a translation 
of the work of that gifted writer. 

The continuation of this History from the Revolution of 1789 has been 
derived from the most authentic sources, and we have endeavored to present 
it in a manner that will interest the reader, and present a consecutive 
story of the French people to the present day. 

We present this volume to the reading public with the strong conviction 
that the close intimacy which has existed in the past between the American 
Republic and the French nation may be an inducement to the citizens of the 
former to study the remarkable phases in the history of that nation which 
gave the world a Napoleon Bonaparte and the United States a Lafayette. 
Long live the Republics on each side of the Atlantic. This History of 
France forms a companion volume to Charles Knight's History of England 
(abridged) and David Miiller's History of Germany (condensed), and these, 
taken with an authentic History of the United States, and each brought 
down to 1883, form a historical library of the four great modern nations in 
two volumes, that well supplies the demands of the American student 
and the reader of general history. 



A SHORT SKETCH OF M. GUIZOT. 

Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot, the great French statesman and 
historian, was born on the 4th of October, 1787, in Nimes, the capital of the 
department of Gard. He was the son of Protestant parents, in which faith he 
was educated. The father of M. Guizot perished on the scaffold April 8th, 
1794, just before the end of that fearful reign of terror, which closed in July 
of that year with the fall of Robespierre. His mother escaped with her two 
sons to Geneva, where they were both educated. In 1805 young Guizot 
appeared in Paris, where he devoted himself to literature. His first work, 
Nouveau Dictionnaire Universal de Sy?ionymes de Langue Francaise (in two 
volumes), appeared four years after. In the introduction of this work he 
displayed a most methodical cast of mind, which at once placed him in the 
front rank. The succeeding seven years was passed in most laborious literary^ 
study. The part which he has taken in the government of France, from the 
time of the second restoration to the year of his death, has received ample 
notice in the body of this history. He was a man of strict rectitude and 
almost austere morals : he never enriched himself from the public funds, but 
he could not escape the charge of having allowed others to do so from 
political motives. His sympathetic and repressive policy made him unpopu- 
lar with the masses, since it was united with a cold and reserved personal 
manner. But wherever he went, to any of the capitals of Europe, he won 
the respect and esteem of those with whom he came in contact. He held 
the position of Lecturer on History at the Sarbonne, a celebrated academic 
body of Paris, until the government, in 1824, forbade his lectures. M. 
Guizot then betook himself once more to literature. In 1827 he was 
permitted to resume his lectures, which at once were attended by large and 
enthusiastic audiences. These lectures gave rise to quite a number of 
historical works of value. On the ist of March, 1829, he again took his place 
in the Council of State, and was elected by the town of Lisieux January, 
1830, to a seat in the Chambers; after this date he became quite prominent 
in public affairs, until the cotip d'etat of December 2d, 1851, put an end to his 
political career. In 1837 he was entrusted by the government of the United 
fates to write a life of Washington, and this work — Vie, Correspondance et 
Ecrits de Washington — was published in 1839-40. This procured him the 
honor of having his portrait placed in the House of Representatives at 
Washington. He was a very voluminous writer, and a list of all his works 
would require too much space. The work which caused the most 
astonishment was a publication, in 1861, defending the temporal power of the 
pope, — a strange position for a Protestant. He was thrice married, the first 
two ladies being women of literary ability. He died September 12th, 1874. 



FRANCE-CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



b, d,_fl, stand respectively for bor7i, died zxidi flourished. 



587 The Gauls in Germany and Italy. 

340 The Gauls in Greece. 

283 A Roman army destroyed by the 

Gauls at Arctium. 
279 The Gauls near Delphi, 
241 The Gauls attacked by Eumenes 

and Attains, 
154 Marseilles calls in the assistance of 

the Romans. 
122 Sextius founds Aquae Sextiae in Pro- 
vence. 
118 Foundation of Narbo Martius, 
102 Marius defeats the Teutons in two 

battles. 
100 Birth of Julius Caesar. 
58 Caesar obtains the government of 

Cisalpine Gaul for five years. 

Attacks the Helvetii. 
51 Gaul made a Roman province. 

A.D. 

70 Civilis surrenders, 

79 Death of Sabinus and of his wife 

Eponina, 
273 The Emperor Aurelian in Gaul. 
273 Battle of Chalons-sur-Marne. 
277 Probus goes on an expedition to 

Gaul, in which country the Franks 

settle about this time, 
305 The Franks defeated by Constantius 

in Gaul. 
355 The Franks take Cologne, and de- 
stroy it ; Julian named prefect of 

Transalpine Gaul, 
357 Julian defeats six German kings at 

Strasburg. 
413 The kingdom of the Burgundians 

begins under Gondicarius. 
420 Pharamond supposed to begin the 

kingdom of the Franks. 



426 Aetius defeats the Franks on the 
borders of the Rhine. 

438 The Franks obtain a permanent 
footing in Gaul, 

451 Battle of Chalons. 

458 Childe'ric, king of the Franks, de- 
posed by his subjects, 

462 The Ripuarian Franks take Cologne 

from the Romans. 

463 Childe'ric recalled by the Franks. 
477 Marseilles, Aries, and Aix occupied 

by the Visigoths, 

Merovingian Dynasty. 

481 Death of Childeric ; his son Clovis- 

succeeds to the throne, 
486 Battle of Soissons gained by Clovis 

against Siagrius, the Roman gen- 
eral in Gaul. 
493 Marriage of Clovis with Clotilda. 
496 Clovis, king of France, is baptized 

after the battle of Tolbiac, 
501 Gondebaud, king of the Burgundians, 

publishes his code, entitled "La 

Loi Gombette." 
507 Battle of Vouille', near Poictiers; 

Alaric is defeated and slain by 

Clovis. 

509 Clovis receives the titles of Patrician 

and Consul 

510 Clovis makes Paris the capital of the 

French dominions, 

511 Clovis dying, his dominions are 

divided among his children. 
524 Battle of Voiron; Chlodomir, king 
of Orleans, is killed by Gondemar^ 
king of Burgundy, 



Vlll 



FRANCE.— CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



531 Thierry, king of Metz, seizes Thurin- 

gia from Hermanfroi. 

532 The kingdom of Burgundy ends, 

being conquered by Childebert and 
Clotaire, kings of Paris and Sois- 
sons. 

556 Civil wars in France ; the dominions 
of Theodebald, king of Metz, are 
divided between Clotaire, king of 
Soissons, and Childebert, king of 
Paris. 

558 Childebert dies, and is succeeded by 
his son Clotaire, who becomes sov- 
ereign of all France. 

560 Chramn, natural son of Clotaire, 
defeated and burnt alive. 

567 Death of Charibert, king of Paris ; 
his territories are divided among 
his brothers ; but the city of Paris 
is held by them in common. 

577 Rivalry of the two queens, Brune- 
haut and Fredegonde. 

612 Theodebert II., king of Austrasia, 

defeated and confined in a monas- 
tery by his brother, Thierry II., 
king of Orleans and Burgundy. 

613 Clotaire, king of all France ; death 

of Brunehaut, widow of Sigebert, 
king of Austrasia. 

628 Clotaire II., king of France, dies, 
and is succeeded by his son Dago- 
bert. 

631 Childeric, son and successor of 
Charibert, poisoned by Dagobert, 
who remains sole monarch of 
France. 

638 Dagobert, king of France, is suc- 
ceeded by his two sons, Sigebert 

II, in Austrasia, and Clovis II. 
in Neustria and Burgundy. The 
Maires du Palais begin to usurp 
the royal authority. 

678 Death of Dagobert II., king of 
Neustria ; Martin and P^pin Heris- 
tal, mayors of the palace. Thierry 

III. is suffered to enjoy the title of 
king of Austrasia, 



A.D. 

691 Clovis III. king. 

715 Charles Martel, son of Pepin Heris- 
tal, governs as mayor of the palace. 

717 Charles Martel defeats king Childe- 
ric II. and the Neustrians. 

732 Charles Martel defeats the Saracens. 

735 Charles Martel becomes master of 
Aquitaine. 

737 On the death of Thierry III., 
Charles Martel governs France, 
with the title of duke, for six years. 

741 Charles Martel dies, and is succeeded 

by his sons, Carloman in Austrasia 
and Thuringia, and Pepin in Neus- 
tria, Burgundy and Provence. 

742 Pepin places Childdric III. on the 

throne of Neustria and Burgundy. 
— Charlemagne b. 

Carlovingian Dynasty. 

752 Pepin deposes Childeric, confines 
him in a monastery, and is conse- 
crated at Soissons. 

754 Pepin's expedition into Italy. 

758 Pepin reduces the Saxons in Ger- 
many. 

768 Pepin dies at St. Denis, and is suc- 
ceeded by his sons Charles and 
Carloman. 

771 Carloman dying in November,Charle- 

magne remains sovereign of all 
France. 

772 Charlemagne begins the Saxon war, 

which continues thirty years. 

773 Charlemagne defeats the troops of 

Didier, king of the Lombards, and 
and lays siege to Pavia. 

774 Surrender of Pavia, and capture of 

Didier. 
776 The abbey church of St. Denis, near 

Paris, founded. 
778 Battle of Roucevaux. 
784 Charlemagne defeats Witikind and 

the Saxons. 
791 Charlemagne defeats the Avari, in 

Pannonia. 



FRANCE.— CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



IX 



A.D. 

793 



800 

806 
813 



814 
817 
840 



841 
843 

844 

877 

879 



880 



887 



911 



987 
996 



The Saracens ravage Gallia Nar- 
bonnensis, where they are at length 
defeated by Charlemagne. 

Charlemagne crowned king of Italy 
and emperor of the West. 

Partition of the empire. 

Charlemagne associates his son 
Louis, surnamed the Debonnair, 
or the Pious, to the Western Em- 
pire. 

Charlemagne dies; succeeded as 
emperor and king by his son Louis. 

Louis divides his empire among his 
children. 

Louis the Debonnair dies ; his eldest 
son, Lothaire, has Italy, with the 
title of emperor ; Charles the Bald, 
the kingdom of France ; and Louis, 
that of Bavaria or Germany. 

Battle of Fontanet. 

New partition of the French domin- 
ions in an assembly at Thionville. 

Charles the Bald defeated in Aqui- 
taine by Pepin II. 

Charles the Bald poisoned. His son, 
Louis II., surnamed the Stam- 
merer, succeeds him. 

Louis the Stammerer dies, and is 
succeeded by his sons, Louis III. 
and Carloman. Boson seizes Dau- 
phiny and Provence, and begins 
the kingdom of Aries. 

The Normans invade France, and 
destroy several abbeys. 

Louis III., king of France, defeats 
the Normans at Saucourt. 

Louis III. of France dies, leaving 
his brother Carloman sole sover- 
eign. Hincmar d. 

Paris besieged by the Normans. 

On the death of Charles his domin- 
ions are divided into five kingdoms. 

A part of Neustria granted to Rollo, 
as Normandy, by Charles the Sim- 
ple. 

Hugh Capet king. 

Paris made the capital of all France. 



1060 Philip I. (the Fair) king. 
1 1 08 Louis VI., /e Gros (the Lusty), king. 
1 135 Letters of franchise granted to cities 
and towns by Louis VI. " ^ 

1 146 Louis VII. j6ins the Crusades. 
1 180 Philip (Augustus) II. king. 
1 2 1 4 Philip def 'ts the Germans at Bouvines. 

1223 Louis VIII. king. 

1224 Louis frees his serfs. 

1226 Louis IX., called St. Louis, king. 
1250 to 1270 St. Louis defeats King Hen- 
ry of England ; joins the Crusades ; 

captures the city of Damietta, in 

Syria; is made prisoner; finally 

dies before Tunis. 
1266 Naples and Sicily conquered by 

Charles of Anjou. 
1270 Philip III. (the Hardy) king. 
1285 Philip IV. (the Fair) king. 
1301-02 Philip quarrels with the pope. 
1307-14 Philip suppresses the Knights 

Templar, and burns the Grand 

Master at Paris. 
13 14 Union of France and Navarre. Louis 

X. king. 
13 16 John I., a posthumous son of Louis 

X., king. Dies at the age of four 

days. 
1316 Philip V. (called "the Long") king. 
1322 Charles IV. king. 
1328 Philip VI. (founder of the House of 

Valois) king. 

1346 France invaded by the English. 

Philip defeated at Crecy by Edward 
III. 

1347 Edward III. takes Calais. 

1349 Dauphiny annexed to France. 

1350 John II. king. 

1356 John defeated at Poictiers by the 
English, made prisoner and carried 
to London, where he dies. 

1364 Charles V. (called the Wise) king. 

1380 Charles VI. king. 

1407 The pope lays France under an 
interdict. 

1 41 5 The English defeat the French at 
Afrincourt. 



FRANCE.— CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



A.D. 
1420 

1422 



1422 

1423 
1428 

1428 

1429 

I43I 
1435 
1436 

1437 

1440 
1444 

1449 

1450 

1451 



1453 
1456 
I461 
1464 



1465 

1467 
1468 

1476 

1477 



Henry V., of England, acknowledged 
heir to the kingdom. 
Henry VI., of England, crowned at 
Paris, the duke of Bedford acting 
as regent. 
Charles VIII. king. The French, 
under the leadership of the Maid 
of Orleans, take up arms for their 
independence, in 1429. 
Battle of Crevant (June). 
The duke of Bedford defeats the 
French at Verneuil (August 16). 
The siege of Orleans begins on the 

1 2th of October. 
Battle of Herrings (12th February). 
Joan of Arc obliges the English to 
raise the siege of Orleans. 
Trial and death of Joan of Arc. 
Treaty of Arras. 
Paris recovered by the French, on the 

13th of April. 
Siege of Montereau. Charles VII. 
makes his solemn entry into Paris. 
The " Praguery." 
Truce between England and France 

signed at Tours. 
War renewed between England and 

France. 
Battle of Formigny gained over the 

English. Agnes Sorel d. 
The English evacuate Rouen and 

several places in France. Cam- 
paign in Guyenne. 
Talbot d. 
Jacques Coeur d. 
Louis XL king of France. 
The league against Louis XL of 

France, called " La Guerre du Bien 

Public." 
Treaties of Conflans and of Saint- 

Maur. 
Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy,^. 
Louis XL at Peronne. Revolt of the 

Lidgese. 
Charles, duke of Burgundy, defeated 

at Granson (20th of June). 
The duke of Burgundy slain at Nancy. 



1479 Battle of Guinegate. 

1483 Louis XL ^/. Rabelais/^. Luther^. 

Charles VI 11. king of France. 

1484 The States-General convoked at 

Tours. 
1488 Battle of St. Aubin ; the duke of 

Brittany is defeated and the duke 

of Orleans taken prisoner (28th of 

June). 
1492 Brittany united to] the French crown. 

1494 Charles VIIL, king of France, goes 

on an expedition into Italy. 

1495 Battle of Fornovo between Charles 

VIIL and the Venetians (6th July). 
Clement Marot b. 



1498 
1499 



1500 
1501 



1503 



1504 
1508 



1509 



1510 
1512 
1513 



1514 



Branch of Orleans, 

Death of Charles VIIL, king of 
France (April 7 th). 

Louis XII., king of France, takes 
possession of Milaness, and enters 
Milan on the 6th of October. 

Insurrection at Milan. 

Louis XII. of France and Ferdinand 
V. of Spain seize on the kingdom 
of Naples. 

The power of the French in Naples 
ends with the loss of the battles of 
Cerignola,Seminara, and Garigliano. 
Pope Alexander VI. d. Michel de 
I'Hospital b. 

Truce between France and Spain. 

The pope and the emperor join the 
king of France in the treaty of Cam- 
bray, against the Venetians. 

Battle of Agnadello (14th of May). 
Calvin b. Etienne Dolet b. Mar- 
tial d'Auvergne d. 

Cardinal d'Amboise d. 

Battle of Ravenna. Gaston de Foix d. 

The French defeated by the Swiss 
in the battle of Novarra. Jacques 
Amyot b. Pope Julius II. d. 

Anne of Brittanv d. 



Branch of AngouUme, 
15 15 Battle of Melegnano between the 



FRANCE.— CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



XI 



A.D. 

French and Swiss. Louis XII. d. 
Ramus b. 
15 1 6 Treaty of Noyons signed on the i6th 
of August. 

1520 Interview between Henry VIII. of 

England and Francis I. of France 
(4th of June). Pierre Viret b. 

152 1 League between the emperor Charles 

V. of Spain and Henry VIII. of 
England, against the king of France. 
1523 League against Francis I. of France, 
by Pope Clement VII., the emperor, 
and the Venetians. Bayard d. The 
memoirs of Commines published. 

1525 Francis I. taken prisoner in the 

battle of Pavia (24th of February), 
and sent to Madrid. 

1526 Treaty of Madrid (14th of January). 

Francis is restored to liberty. The 
Holy League. 

1527 Henri Estienne ^. Bran tome (^. 
1529 Peace of Cambray, between Charles 

V. and Francis I. Louis de Ber- 
quin put to death. Etienne Pas- 
quier b. 
1536 League between Francis I. of France 
and Solyman II., sultan of the Turks, 
against the emperor Charles V. 
Vanquelin de la Fresnaye b. 

1543 Treaty of alliance between Sultan 

Solyman and Francis I. of France 
against the emperor Charles V. 

1544 Battle of Cerisoles. Treaty of Crespy 

(i8th of September). Bonaventure 
des Periers d. Clement Marot d. 
Du Bartas b. 

1545 Massacre of the Vaudois. Robert 

Garnier b. 

1547 Henry II. king of France. 

1548 Rebellion in the South of France. 

La Boetie writes his Contre un. 
First edition of the Salic law. 
1556 Charles V. resigns the crown of 
Spain and all his other dominions 
and retires to the monastery of St. 
Just. Malherbe b. 



A. D. 

1557 Battle of St. Quentin (loth of 

August). 

1558 The French recover Calais from the 

English. Mellin de St. Gelais d. 

1559 Henry II. d. Peace of Cateau-Cam- 

bre'sis. Edict of Ecouen. Amyot 
translates Plutarch. Anne Dubourg 
put to death. 

1560 Conspiracy of Amboise. Francis 

II. d. Charles IX., king. Joachim 
du Bellay d. 

1562 Massacre of Vassy. Battle of Dreux 

(19th December). 

1563 The duke of Guise is assassinated by 

Poltrot (24th February). Peace of 
Amboise. 

1567 The religious wars recommence in 
France ; battle of St. Denis, between 
the prince of Conde and the con- 
stable Montmorency, in which the 
latter is mortally wounded. 

1569 The Huguenots defeated in the 
battles of Jarnac, on the 13th May, 
and of Moncontour, on the 3d 
October. 

1572 Massacre of the Huguenots at Paris, 
on Sunday, the 24th August. Ra- 
mus d. Jean Goujon d. 

1574 Charles IX. d. Hotman publishes 
his Franco- Gallia. 

1576 Edict of pacification in France. 

1584 The Cardinal de Bourbon proposed 
as eventual king of France. La 
Croix du Maine publishes his 
Bibliotheque Frangaise. 

1587 Battle of Coutras (loth of October), 

the Duke de Joyeuse is defeated by 
Henry, king of Navarre, An 
Arabic lectureship is created at the 
college royal. 

1588 The duke of Guise and his brother 

the cardinal murdered at Blois. 

Dynasty of the Bourbons. 

1589 Henry III. of France murdered 

(22d of July). Henry IV. of 
Navarre succeeds to the vacant 



Xll 



FRANCE.— CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



1594 



throne. Battle of Arques. Ron- 
sard, Hotman d. 

1590 Battle of Ivry (4th of March). 

Germain Pilon, Jean Cousin, Du 
Bartas, Cujas, Ambrose Pare, 
Palissy d. The'ophile de Viaud b. 

1 59 1 The pope excommunicates Henry 

IV. : the parliament of Paris 
oppose the sentence. Guy Co- 
quille's Liberies de Feglise de France 
published. La Noue d. 

1593 Henry IV. abjures the Protestant 
religion, on Sunday, the 25th of 
July, at St. Denis. The Satire 
Menippee published. Amyot d. 
Henry IV. anointed at Chartres : 
attempt on his life (17 th December), 
Pierre Pithou fl. Balzac, St. Amand 
b. 

1595 Battle of Fontaine- Frangaise. Des- 
marets de St, Sorlin b. 

1598 Edict of Nantes (April). Peace of 
Vervins signed on the 22d of the 
same month. Voiture b. 

1602 Marshal Biron's conspiracy detected 
and punished. 

161 o Henry IV. assassinated by Ravaillac 
(4th of May). Louis XIII. king 
of France. Scarron, La Calpre- 
nede b. 

1617 Murder of Concini. 

162 1 The civil war renewed with the 
Huguenots in France, and continues 
nine years. The Benedictines of 
the congregation of St. Maur receive 
their statutes. La Fontaine b. 

1628 Rochelle besieged and taken by 

Louis XIII. (i8th of October). 

1629 Peace restored between France and 

England. Malherbe d. Corneille 
brings out Melite, his first play. 

1630 Treaty of Cherasco. " Journee des 

Dupes." Hardy, Agrippa, d'Au- 

bigne d. 
1632 Battles of Lutzen and of Castel- 

naudary. Flechier, Bourdaloue b. 
1636 Treaty between Louis XIII. of 



France, and Christina, queen of 
Sweden (loth of March). Port 
Royal des Champs founded. Lc 
Cid brought out. Boileau b. 

1642 Conspiracy of Cinq-Mars. Riche- 

lieu d. 

1643 Louis XIII. d. (4th of May). The 

Duke d'Enghien, afterward prince 
of Condd, defeats the Spaniards at 
Rocroy (9th of May). St. Cyran d. 

1648 The prince of Conde defeats the 
archduke at Sens (loth of August). 
Treaty of Munster (i4th of October) 
between France, Sweden and the 
empire. The civil war of the. 
Fronde breaks out in Paris. Mer- 
senne, Voiture d. La Sueur 
finishes his series of paintings 
illustrating the history of St. Bruno. 

1659 Peace restored between France and 
Spain, by the treaty called the 
" Peace of the Pyrenees." Louis. 
XIV. marries the Infanta of Spain. 
Moliere and the Precieuses ridicules^ 

1 66 1 Cardinal Mazarin d. Bossuet's first 
sermon before Louis XIV. 

1667 War renewed between France and 

Spain. Moliere and TarUcffe. Ra- 
cine and Andromaque. 

1668 A triple alliance between Great Brit- 

ain, Sweden, and the States-Gen- 
eral, against France (23d of Jan- 
uary.) Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle,. 
between France and Spain (2 2d of 
April). Racine and Les Plaideurs^ 
Moliere and VAvare. Le Sage b. 

1672 War declared by England and 

France, against the Dutch. A treaty 
between the empire and Holland, 
against France (15th of July). Boi- 
leau and Le Lutrin. Molibre and 
Les Fenimes savantes. 

1673 The English and French defeat the 
Dutch (28th of May) at Schonvelt ; 

again (4th of June), and (nth of 
August) in the mouth of the Texel. 
Louis XIV. declares war against 



FRANCE.— CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



xui 



A.l>, 



1674 



167s 
1678 

1681 
1684 

1685 
1686 

1689 

1690 

1691 
1692 



Spain (9th of October). Racine 
and Mithridate. 

Battle of Seneffe, in Flanders, be- 
tween the prince of Orange and the 
prince of Conde (ist of August). 
First settlement of the French at 
Pondicherry. Marshal Turenne 
defeats the Imperialists. Chapelain 
d. Racine and Iphigenie. Male- 
branche and the Recherche de la 
Verite. 

Conference for a peace held at Nim- 
eguen. Madame de la Valliere 
takes the veil. 

Peace of Nimeguen (31st of July). 
La Fontaine publishes his second 
series of fables. Ducange's Latin 
Glossary. 

The city of Strasburg submits to 
Louis XIV. Mabillon publishes 
his De re diplomatica. 

Luxemburg taken by Louis XIV. 
A truce between France and Spain 
concluded at Ratisbon (31st of July) 
and between France and the empire 
(5th of August). P. Corneille d. 

Louis XIV. revokes the edict of 
Nantes. 

Treaty of alliance between Germany, 
Great Britain, and Holland against 
France. Conde d. 

The French fleet defeated by the 
English and Dutch in Bantry Bay 
(ist of May). Racine and Esther. 

Battle of Fleurus ; Luxemburg de- 
feats the allies (21st of June). The 
allied English and Dutch fleets de- 
feated by the French off Beachy 
Head (30th of June). 

A congrest} at the Hague, in Jan. 
Mons taken by the French (30th of 
March). Louvois d. Racine and 
Athalie. 

Battle of La Hogue : the English 
defeat the French fleet (19th of 
May). Namur, in Flanders, be- 
sieged and taken by Louis XIV. 



(25th of May). Luxemburg de- 
feats the allies at Steinkirk (24th of 
July). 
1693 The English and Dutch fleets de- 
feated by the French off Cape St, 
Vincent (i6th of June). The duke 
of Savoy defeated by Marshal Cat- 
inat, at Marsaglia (24th of Septem- 
ber). Pelisson, Bussy-Rabutin, Ma- 
dame de La Fayette, Mdlle. de 
Montpensier d. 

1697 Peace of Ryswick (i ith of September) 

between Great Britain and France 
— France and Holland — France and 
Spain ; and on the 20th of October, 
between France and the empire. 
Santeuil d. The Abbe Prevost b. 

1698 The first treaty of partition between 

Great Britain, France and Holland 
signed (19th of August) for the dis- 
memberment of Spain, to Charles 
II., king of that country, makes his 
will in favor of a prince of the 
house of Bourbon. Le Nain de 
Tillemont d. 

Charles II., king of Spain, d. (21st 
of October), The duke of Anjou, 
grandson of Louis XIV., succeeds 
by the name of Philip V. 
Battle of Luzzara, in Italy (4th of 
August) ; the Imperialists defeated 
by the French ; the French fleet 
destroyed in the port of Vigo, by 
the British and Dutch (12th of 
October). Jean Bart d. 

1704 Battle of Hochstedt or Blenheim 
(2d of August). Bossuet, Bourda- 
loue d. 

1706 Battle of Ramilies (12th of May); 
the French are defeated by the duke 
of Marlborough. 

1708 Battle of Audenarde (30th of June), 

the French defeated by the duke of 
Mariborough and Prince Eugene. 
Regnard and Le Legataire universe!, 
Le Sage and Turcaret. 

1709 Battle of Malplaquet (31st of Aug.), 



1700 



1702 



XIV 



FRANCE.— CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



the French defeated by the allies. 
Mons taken by the allies (21st of 
October). Port Royal des Champs 
destroyed. 
17 10 Battle of Villa Viciosa (29th of No- 
vember), the Imperialists, under 
Count Stahremburg, are defeated 
by Philip V. 

1 7 12 Negotiations for a general peace 

opened at Utrecht. Jean Jacques 
Rousseau b. 

1 7 13 Peace of Utrecht, concluded by 

France and Spain, with England, 
Savoy, Portugal, Prussia, and Hol- 
land, signed on the 30th of March 
O.S. Fenelon publishes his Traits 
de V existence de Dieu. 

1714 The bull " Unigenitus " received in 

France. 

1 7 15 Louis XIV. d. (21st of August), suc- 

ceeded by his great-grandson, Louis 
XV., under the regency of the duke 
of Orleans. Malebranche, Fenelon 
d. Le Sage's Gil Bias. 

17 17 Triple alliance between Great Brit- 

ain, France and Holland, signed at 
the Hague (24th of December). 
The memoirs of Cardinal de Retz 
published. Massillon's Petit Ca- 
reme preached. 

1 7 18 Quadruple alliance between Ger- 

many, Great Britain, France, and 
Holland, for the maintenance of 
the treaties of Utrecht and Baden. 
Conspiracy of Cellamare. Great 
Britain declares war against Spain 
(nth of December). Voltaire and 
CEdipe, his first tragedy. 

17 19 The Mississippi scheme at its height 

in France. Madame de Maintenon d. 

1720 The French Mississippi company 

dissolved. The plague breaks out 
at Marseilles, and causes great dis- 
tress. 
1723 Duke of Orleans d. Voltaire pub- 
lishes his Pohne de la Ligne (La 
Henriade). 



1725 Treaty of Hanover, between Great 
Britain, France, and Russia, against 
Germany and Spain (3d of Sep- 
tember). 

1733 Stanislaus proclaimed king of Po- 

land (5th of October). 

1734 The ImperiaKsts defeated by the 

French and Piedmontese at Parma 
(i8th of June), and in the battle of 
Guastalla, by the king of Sardinia, 
and the Marshals Coigny and Brog- 
lie (8th of September). Montes- 
quieu's Grandeur et Dkadence des 
Romains. 

1735 Treaty of Vienna (3d of October). 

Voltaire publishes his Lettresphilo- 
sophiques. 

1740 The Emperor Charles VI. d. (9th of 

October). Voltaire publishes his 
Essai sur les mceurs. 

1 741 The archduchess Maria Theresa 

crowned queen of Hungary at 
Presburg (25 th of June). 
1743 Battle of Dettingen (i6th of June). 
Cardinal de Fleury d. Voltaire and 
Mkrope. 

1745 Battle of Fontenoy ; the French de- 

feat the allies, commanded by the 
duke of Cumberland. 

1746 (April 1 6th) Battle of Culloden. 

1746 (September 30th) Count Saxe de- 
feats the allies at Raucoux. Vau- 
venargues and the Introduction a la 
connaissance de V esprit humain. 

1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, between 
Great Britain, France, Spain, Aus- 
tria, Sardinia, and Holland (7 th of 
October). Montesquieu's Esprit 
des lois. 

1754 (April 17th) the French attack an 
English fort on Monongahela, and 
Logstown on the Ohio. General 
Braddock defeated and killed by 
the French (July 9th), near Fort 
Du Quesne, on the Ohio. 

1756 May 29th, Admiral Byng defeat- 
ed by the French. The duke of 



FRANCE.— CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



XV 



A.r». 



I7S7 



1758 



1759 

1760 
1761 

1762 

1763 

1767 

1769 
1774 



Richelieu takes Port Mahon (June 
28th). 

Damien attempts to assassinate Lou- 
is XV. The French garrison 0/ 
Chandernugger surrenders to the 
British (March 23d), Battle of 
Hastenbeck, the French defeat the 
duke of Cumberland (July 26th). 
The marquis of Montcalm besieges 
Fort George (August 3d), the Eng- 
lish surrender on the 9th. Conven- 
tion of Closter-Seven, between 
Marshal Richelieu and the duke of 
Cumberland (September 8th). Bat- 
tle of Rosbach (November 5th). 

March 14th. The French garrison 
in Minden capitulates. The French 
defeated at Crevelt (June 23d). 
Helvetius publishes De VEsprit. 
Quesnay's Tableau economiqiie. 

(September 30th.) The British de- 
feated by the French in the East 
Indies, near Arcot. Rousseau's 
Noiivelle Helo'ise, 

(April 28th.) The English defeated 
by the French near Quebec. Mdme. 
de Souza b. 

(August 15th.) The family compact 
concluded between Louis XV. of 
France and Charles III. of Spain. 
Voltaire's L^ Tughiu. 

(August 6th.) The Jesuits suppressed 
in France. Treaty of peace signed 
at Fontainebleau, between France, 
Spain and Great Britain. Rous- 
seau's Emile. 

(February loth.) Peace of Paris, be- 
tween Great Britain, France and 
Spain, acceded to by Portugal. 
L'Abbe Prevost d. 

(May 15th.) Corsica ceded to France, 
by the Genoese. Benjamin Con- 
stant, Fievee, b. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, Cuvier, Cha- 
teaubriand, b. 

(May loth.) Louis XV. of France 
d. Succeeded by Louis XVI. 



A.D. 

1778 



1782 



1783 



1788 



1789 



1790 



1791 



1792 



1793 



(February 6th.) Treaty of alliance 
and defence between France and 
the Americans. Pondicherry taken 
by the British. Rousseau, Vol- 
taire, d. Buffon's Epoques de la 
nature. 

(April 1 2th.) Sir George Rodney 
defeats the French fleet under 
Count de Grasse, off Dominica. 
Another engagement near Trinco- 
malee, on the same day ; and a 
third in September. 

(January 20th.) Preliminaries of 
peace between Great Britain, France 
and Spain, by which the indepen- 
dence of America is confirmed. 

(November 6th.) The French nota- 
bles, convoked by Louis XVI., as- 
semble at Paris. Buffon d. Ber- 
nardin de St. Pierre's Paul et Vir- 
ginie. 

(May 4th.) The States-General of 
France assemble. The Bastille at 
Paris destroyed (July 14th). Che- 
nier's Charles IX. performed. 

Confederation of the Champs de 
Mars ; the king takes the oath to 
the constitution, July 14th. 

Death of Mirabeau, April 2d. 
Flight of the king and queen. They 
are arrested at Varennes, June 21st. 
Louis (now a prisoner) sanctions 
the National Constitution, Septem- 
ber 15 th. 

First coalition against France. Com- 
mencement of the great wars, June. 
Battle of Valmy ; the Prussians de- 
feated, and France saved from in- 
vasion, Sept. 20th. Attack on the 
Tuileries by the mob, Aug. loth. 
Massacres in the prisons of Paris, 
Sept. 2-5. Opening of the Nation- 
al Convention, Sept. 17th. The con- 
vention abolishes royalty ; declares 
France a republic, Sept. 20-22. 

Louis XVI. beheaded, Jan. 21st. 
War against England declared. 



XVI 



FRANCE.— CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



Feb. I St. Insurrection in La Ven- 
dee begins, March. Proscription 
of the Girondists. Beginning of 
the Reign of Terror, May 31st. 
Charlotte Corday kills Marat, July 
13th. Execution of Marie Antoin- 
ette, Oct. 1 6th. 

1793 The Duke of Orleans, Philippe Ega- 

lite beheaded, Nov. 6th. Madame 
Roland executed, Nov. 8th. 

1794 Danton and others guillotined, April 

5th. Robespierre and seventy-one 
others guillotined, July 28th. Close 
of the Reign of Terror. 

1795 The Dauphin (Louis XVII.) dies in 

prison. The Directory, Nov. ist. 

1796 Bonaparte wins the victories of Mon- 

tenotte, Mondovi, and Lodi, in It- 
aly. 

1796 The conspiracy of Baboeuf sup- 

pressed. 

1797 Pichegru's conspiracy fails. 

1797 Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt. 
Destruction of the French fleet near 
Alexandria by Nelson. 

1799 Bonaparte returns from Egypt. De- 

poses the Council of Five Hun- 
dred, and is declared First Consul, 
Nov. loth. 

1800 Battle of Marengo. Great victory 

by Bonaparte over the Austrians. 
Attempt to kill the consul by means 
of an infernal machine, Dec. 24th. 

1802 Peace with England, Spain and Hol- 

land signed at Amiens, March 27th. 
Legion of Honor instituted. Bon- 
aparte made " consul for life," 
Aug 2d. 

1803 Bank of France established. War 

with England. 

1804 Conspiracy of Moreau and Pichegru 

against Bonaparte fails. Execution 
of the Duke d'Enghien. The em- 
pire formed. Napoleon proclaimed 
emperor. May i8th. 

1805 Napoleon crowned king of Italy, 

May 26th. Battle of Trafalgar. 



Destruction of the French fleet,, 
Oct. 2 1 St. Battle of Austerlitz. 
Austria humbled, Dec. 2d. 
1806 Defeat of Prussians at Jena, Oct^ 
14th. 

1808 New nobility of France created. 

1809 Divorce of the Empress Josephine. 

Napoleon defeated at Aspern and 
Essling. Victorious at Wagram. 

18 10 Union of Holland with France. 

1812 War with Russia. Napoleon in- 

vades Russia. Great victory of the 
French at Borodino, Sept. 7th. 
Disastrous retreat of the Frenck 
from Moscow. 

1813 Alliance of Austria, Russia, and 

Prussia against Napoleon. Battle 
of Leipzig. Napoleon defeated, 
Oct. 16-18. The Allies invade 
France from the Rhine ; the Eng- 
lish from Spain. 

18 14 Surrender of Paris to the Allies,. 

March 31. Abdication of Napo- 
leon, April 5. Napoleon goes to 
Elba, May 3. Louis XVIII. enters 
Paris May 3. The Bourbon Dy- 
nasty restored. The Constitutional 
Charter established, June 4th-ioth.. 

1815 Napoleon leaves Elba; lands at 

Cannes, March ist, and proceeds to 
Paris. Is joined by all the army. 
The Allies form a league for his. 
destruction, March 25. Napoleon 
abolishes the Slave Trade, March 
29. Leaves Paris for the army, 
June 12. Battle of Waterloo. 
Final over-throw of Napoleon, June 
18. Napoleon reaches Paris June 
20. Abdicates in favor of his son, 
June 22. Reaches Rochefort, 
where he intends to embark for 
America, July 3. Entry of Louis 
XVIII. into Paris, July 3. Napo- 
leon goes on board the " Bellero- 
phon " and claims the "hospitality" 
of England, July 15. Upon reach- 
ing England is transferred to the 



FRANCE.— CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



xvii 



A.X). 

" Northumberland," and sent a 
prisoner to St. Helena, Aug. 8. 
Arrives at St. Helena, Oct. 15. 
Execution of Marshal Ney, Dec. 7. 
1816 The family of Napoleon forever 
excluded from France. 

1820 Assassination of the Duke de Berri, 

Feb. 13. 

182 1 Death of Napoleon I., May 5. 
1824 Death of Louis XVIII., Sept, 16. 

Charles X. king. 
1827 National Guard disbanded. War 
with Algiers. Riots in Paris. 
Seventy-six new peers created. 

1829 The Polignac administration organ- 

ized. 

1830 Chamber of Deputies dissolved. May 

16. Capture of Algiers, July 5. 
Revolution of July Flight and ab- 
dication of Charles X. Louis 
Philippe king. Polignac and the 
ministers of Charles X. sentenced 
to perpetual imprisonment. 

1 83 1 The hereditary peerage abolished. 

1832 Insurrection in Paris suppressed. 

1833 Failure of the attempt of the Duch- 

ess de Berri. 

1834 Death of Lafayette, May 20. 

1835 Fieschi attempts to kill the king, 

July 28, and is executed, Feb. 6, 1836. 

1836 Louis Alibaud fires at the king, June 

25; is guillotined, July 11. Death 
of Charles X., Nov. 6. Prince 
Louis Napoleon attempts an insur- 
rection at Strasbourg, Oct. 30. Is 
sent to America, Nov. 13. The 
ministers of Charles X. set at lib- 
erty and sent out of France. Meu- 
nier attempts to kill the king. 

1838 Death of Talleyrand, May 17. 

1840 M. Thiers Prime Minister. Removal 
of the remains of the Emperor 
Napoleon I. from St. Helena to 
Paris. Prince Louis Napoleon, 
General Montholon, and others 
attempt an insurrection at Boulogne, 
Aug. 6. Prince Louis Napoleon 
2 



sentenced to imprisonment for life, 
and confined in the Castle of Ham, 
Oct. 6. Darmes attempts to shoot 
the king, Oct. 15. 

1842 The Duke of Orleans, the heir to 

the throne, dies from the effect of 
a fall, July 13. 

1843 Queen Victoria, of England, visits 

the royal family at the chateau d'Eu. 
Extradition treaty with England. 

1846 Lecompte attempts to assassinate 

the king at Fontainebleau. Louis 
Napoleon escapes from Ham. 
Joseph Henri attempts to kill the 
king. 

1847 Jerome Bonaparte returns to France 

after an exile of thirty-two years. 
Death of the ex- Empress Marie 
Louise. 

1848 Revolution of February 22d to 26th. 

Flight of the king and royal family. 
The Republic proclaimed, Feb. 26. 
The provisional government suc- 
ceeded by an executive commis- 
sion named by the assembly. May 7. 
Louis Napoleon elected to the 
assembly from the Seine and three 
other departments, June 13. Out- 
break of the Red Republicans. 
1848 Severe fighting in Paris, June 23d to 
26th ; 16,000 persons killed, includ- 
ing the Archbishop of Paris. Gen. 
Cavaignac at the head of the gov- 
ernment, June 28. Louis Napoleon 
takes his seat in the assembly, Sept. 
26. The Constitution of the Re- 
public solemnly proclaimed, Nov. 
12. Louis Napoleon elected pres- 
ident of the French Republic, Dec. 
II. Takes the oath of office, Dec. 
20. 

1850 Death of Louis Philippe at Clare- 

mont, in England, Aug. 26. Free- 
dom of the press curtailed. 

185 1 Electric telegraph between England 

and France opened. The Coup 
d'Etat. Arrest of the National 



XVlll 



FRANCE.— CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



A.I>. 

Assembly, Dec. 2. Severe fighting 
in Paris. The president crushes 
the opposition, Dec. 3, and 4. The 
Coup d'Etat sustained by the people 
at the polls, and Louis Napoleon 
re-elected president for ten years, 
Dec. 21, and 22. 

1852 President Louis Napoleon occupies 
the Tuileries, Jan. i. The new 
constitution published, Jan. 14. 
The property of the Orleans family 
confiscated. The birthday of Na- 
poleon I., Aug. 15th, declared the 
only national holiday. Organiza- 
tion of the Legislative Chambers 
(the Senate and Corps Legislatif), 
March 29. The president visits 
Strasbourg. M. Thiers and the 
exiles permitted to return to France, 
Aug. 8. The Senate petitions the 
president for " the re-establishment 
of the hereditary sovereign power in 
the Bonaparte family," Sept. 13. 
The president visits the Southern and 
Western departments, Sept. and 
Oct. At Bordeaux utters his 
famous expression, '* The Empire 
is Peace." The president releases 
Abd-el-Kader, Oct. 16. Measures 
for the re-establishment of the 
empire inaugurated, Oct. and Nov. 
The empire re-established by the 
popular vote, Nov. 21 ; yeas, 
75839.552 ; nays, 254,501. The 
president declared emperor ; he as- 
sumes the title of Napoleon III., 
Dec. 2. 

1853 The emperor marries Eugenie, coun- 
tess of Teba, Jan. 29. The emper- 
or releases 4,312 political offenders, 
Feb. 2. 

1853 Bread riots. Death of F. Arago, 

the astronomer, Oct. 2. Attempt 
to assassinate the emperor. 

1854 Beginning of the Crimean war. 

1855 Emperor and empress visit England 

in April. Industrial exhibition 



opened at Paris, May 15. Pianorl 
attempts to assassinate the emperor, 
April 28. Bellemarre attempts to 
assassinate the emperor, Sept. 8. 
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert 
visit France, August. 

1856 Birth of the Prince Imperial, March 

16. The treaty of Paris. Close of 
the Crimean war, March 30, Ter- 
rible inundations in the Southern 
Departments, June. 

1857 The archbishop of Paris (Sibour} 

assassinated by a priest named Ver- 
ger. Conspiracy to assassinate 
the emperor detected, July 11. 
Visit of the emperor and empress to 
England. Death of Gen. Cavaig- 
nac, Oct. 28. The Emperor Napo- 
leon meets the emperor of Russia 
at Stuttgart, Sept. 25. 

1858 Orsini and others attempt to kill 
the emperor by the explosion of 
three shells. Two persons killed 
and several wounded, Jan. i4» 
Passage of the Public Safety BilL 

1858 The empire divided into five milita- 

ry departments. Republican out- 
break at Chalons crushed. Orsi- 
ni and Pietri executed for attempt- 
ing to assassinate the emperor. 
Visit of the queen of England to- 
Cherbourg. Conference at Paris re- 
specting the condition of the Danu- 
bian Principalities. 

1859 The emperor warns the Austrian 

minister of his intention to espouse 
the Italian cause, Jan. i. France 
declares war against Austria, and 
sends an army to the aid of Italy, 
May. The empress declared 
regent. The emperor takes com- 
mand of the army in Italy. Ar- 
rives at Genoa, May 12. 
1859 Battles of Montebello, May 20 ; 
Palestro, May 30th, 31st; Magenta, 
June 4 ; Malegnano, June 8, and 
Solferino, June 24 ; the allies vie- 



FRANCE.— CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



XIX 



A.D. 

torious in each. Armistice arranged 
July 6, Meeting of the emperors 
of France and Austria at Villa 
Franca, July ii. Preliminary 
peace, July 12. The Emperor 
Napoleon returns to France, July 
17. Peace conference meets at 
Zurich for arrangement of treaty 
between France and Sardinia and 
Austria. Peace signed, Nov. 12. 

i860 The emperor adopts a free trade 
policy. Commercial treaty with 
England signed Jan. 23. Annexa- 
tion of Savoy and Nice to France. 
The Emperor Napoleon meets the 
German sovereigns at Baden, June 
15-17. Visit of the emperor and 
empress to Savoy, Corsica, and 
Algiers. The new tariff goes into 
operation, Oct. i. The public 
levying of Peter's pence forbidden, 
and restrictions placed upon the 
issuing of pastoral letters. The 
emperor makes concessions to the 
Chambers in favor of freedom of 
speech. Important ministerial 
changes. The emperor advises 
the pope to give up his temporal 
possessions. 

186 1 Purchase of the principality of 
Monaco for 4,000,000 francs. 
Troubles with the church about the 
Roman question. The government 
issues a circular forbidding priests 
to meddle in politics, April 11. 
Commercial treaty with Belgium. 
France declares neutrality in the 
American conflict. France recog- 
nizes the kingdom of Italy, June 
24. Meeting of the emperor and 
king of Prussia at Compiegne, Oct. 
6. 

1861 Convention between France, Great 
Britain, and Spain, concerning in- 
tervention in Mexico. Embarrass- 
ment in the government finances. 



Achille Fould made minister of 
finance. 

1862 The Mexican expedition begun. 

The French conquer the province 
of Bienhoa, in Annam. Six prov- 
inces in Cochin China conquered, 
and ceded to France. I'he British 
and Spanish forces withdraw from 
the Mexican expedition. France 
declares war against Mexico. 
Peace with Annam. New commer- 
cial treaty with Prussia, Aug. 2. 
Great distress in the manufacturing 
districts in consequence of the 
civil war in the United States. 

1863 Commercial treaty with Italy. 

Revolt in Annam crushed. Con- 
vention with Spain for the rectifi- 
cation of the frontier. Political 
troubles. Growing power of the 
opposition in the Chambers and 
throughout the country. The elec- 
tions result in the choice of many 
opposition deputies, including 
Thiers, Favre, and others. The 
emperor proposes a European con- 
ference for the settlement of the 
questions of the day, Nov. g. Eng- 
land declines to join the proposed 
conference, Nov. 25. 

1863 The French army conquer Mexico, 

and occupy the capital. 

1864 Treaty with Japan. Commercial 

treaty with Switzerland. Conven- 
tion with Italy respecting the evac- 
uation of Rome. Establishment 
of the Mexican Empire, with Max- 
imilian, of Austria, as emperor. 

1865 The clergy prohibited from reading 

the pope's Encyclical in the 
churches. Treaty with Sweden. 
The plan of Minister Duruy for 
compulsory education rejected by 
the Assembly. Death of the Duke 
de Morny. Visit of the emperor 
to Algeria. The English fleet visits 
Cherbourg and Brest. The French 



XX 



FRANCE.— CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



A.D. 



1867 



1868 



[869 



1870 



1870 



fleet visi ts Portsmouth. The Queen 
of Spain visits the emperor at 
Biarritz. Students' riots in Paris, 

The emperor produces a feeling of 
alarm in Europe by declaring his 
detestation of the treaties of 18 15, 
May 6. He proposes a peace con- 
ference (in conjunction with Eng- 
land and Russia) for the settlement 
of the troubles between Prussia, 
Italy and Austria. Austria refuses 
to join in it, May-June. France 
declares a " watchful neutrality " 
as to the German-Italian war. The 
Emperor Napoleon demands of 
Prussia a cession of a part of the 
Rhine provinces. His demand is 
refused, Aug. Austria cedes Vene- 
tia to France, who transfers it to 
Italy. The French occupation of 
Rome terminated, Dec. 11. 

Settlement of the Luxemburg ques- 
tion by the London Conference. 
The great exposition at Paris, 
opened April i. 

Riots in Bordeaux in March ; in 
Paris in June. 

Great radical successes in the elec- 
tions. The emperor makes new 
concessions in favor of constitu- 
tional government. Celebration 
of the one hundredth birthday of 
Napoleon the Great. 
The Plebiscitum, May 8. Quarrel 
with Prussia. War with Prussia 
begins, July ig. The emperor 
takes command of the army. De- 
feat of the French at Woerth and 
Forbach, Aug. 6. Decisive battle 
of Gravelotte, Aug. 18. Bazaine's 
army shut up in Metz. Battle of 
Sedan, Sept. i. The Emperor Na- 
poleon and the French army made 
prisoners of war, Sept. 2. 
Revolution in Paris. Fall of the 
empire. Flight of the empress, 
Sept. 7. The republic proclaimed 
in Paris, Sept. 7. Paris invested. 



A.D. 

1871 



1872 
1873 

187s 
1875 

1876 

1877 
1878 
1879 



I65I 
1881 



1883 



Paris bombarded by the Germans. 
The armistice, Feb. 28. Meeting 
of the Assembly at Bordeaux. For- 
mation of a provisional government. 
Peace with Germany. Revolt of 
the commune. The second siege 
and capture of Paris. 

Reorganization of the government 
in France. A large part of the war 
indemnity paid. 

May 24. M. Thiers resigns the 
presidency. Marshal MacMahon 
chosen President of the Republic. 
Sept. Payment of the German 
debt. 

The legislative body reorganized — 
two Chambers created. 

Passage of a bill for the construc- 
tion of a tunnel under the English 
Channel. 

March 7. Meeting of the new 
Chambers. 

Sept. 3. Death of M. Thiers. 

International Exposition at Paris. 

Resignation of President MacMahon. 
M. Jules Grevy elected President. 
Mar. I. Prince Napoleon killed in 
Zulu land. Dec. 21. Resignation 
of Waddington ministry. 

Gambetta President of the Chambers. 
Religious orders suppressed. 

Financial Congress at Paris. 

Invasion of Tunis. April. Treaty 
signed May 12 giving France the 
protecterate. French troops enter 
Tunis, Oct. ID. 

Republicans gain twenty-two seats 
in the Senate. Jan. 3. Gambet- 
ta's ministry resigned. Aug. 7. Du- 
clerk forms ministry. Revolt of 
Arabi Pasha in Egypt. May. 
French and English fleet before 
Alexandria. French government 
declines to take part in the war 
against Arabi. 

Jan. I. Death of Gambetta buried 
Jan. 6. Death of General Chanzy, 
buried Jan. 8. Death of General 
Horise De Valdare, Jan. 8, by 
apoplectic fit on hearing of Chanzy's 
death. 



GROWTH OF THE FRENCH ARMY. 



A.D. 
II24 

II91 



1439 



1445 



1478 
1496 

1532 

1544 
1558 

1563 

1609 

1619 
162I 



First instance of a permanent mili- 
tary force established. 

The supreme command of the army 
given to the constable of France, 
who has under his orders two mar- 
shals, besides the grand-master of 
the cross-bowmen. 

The cavalry of the gens d'armes 
{coitipagnies a'ordojina?ice) instituted ; 
these companies, iifteen in number, 
are of 100 lances (600 men) each. 

The Fra?ics-archers or Francs-taupijis 
(infantry) instituted. The name 
taup'ms is derived from the Low 
Latin talparius^ meaning a man 
who works underground, like a mole. 
Scotch archers appointed as part of 
the king's body-guard 

The company of the gentilskonmies- 
a-bec-de-'Corbiji (infantry) organized. 

A body of Swiss soldiers, 127 m 
number, added to the king's house- 
hold troops. {Les cent hommes de 
guerre Suisses de la garde dii Roi?) 

Provincial legions instituted by 
Francis I, These corps, seven in 
all, are of 6000 men each. 

A colonel-general of the infantry 
appointed. 

Creation of a corps of carabms 
(light cavalry). — Marshal de Cossd- 
Brissac forms a regiment of dra- 
goons destined to light both on horse- 
back and on foot. 

The provincial legions formed into 
regiments. The most ancient of 
these corps are the regiments of 
Picardy, Champagne, Navarre, Pied- 
mont. Institution of the French 
guards. 

Appointment of a colonel-general of 
the Swiss and Grison troops in the 
French service. 

Gens d'armes of the king's body- 
guard instituted (cavalry). 

First nomination of a minister of war. 

The company of gray musketeers in- 



stituted. (Thus called from the 
color of their horses.) 

1627 The office of constable of France 
suppressed. 

1630 Formation of a body of chevau-legers 
(household troops, light cavalry). 

163s The musketeers and carbineers 
formed into regiments. 

1660 A company of black tnuskcteers insti- 
tuted. 

1665 Generals of brigade appointed for 

the cavalry. 

1666 Louvois, minister of war. 

1668 Generals of brigade appointed for 
the infantry. 

1670 Establishment of the gardes 7narifies 

at Brest, Rochefort and Toulon. 

1 67 1 Foundation of the Hotel des Inva- 

lides. Introduction of the bayonet. 
Regiments of fusiliers formed. 

1672 Companies of grenadiers introduced 

into each regiment. 

1686 Grenadiers on foot and on horse- 
back raised as part of the house- 
hold troops. 

1679-1707 Vauban reorganizes military 
engineering. 

1682 Military schools established (ecoles 
de cadets^. 

1 69 1 First company of hussars raised. 

1693 The order of Saint-Louis created as 
a decoration for military services. 

1734 Marshal de Saxe forms a body of 
100 Uhlans (lancers). 

1748 Engineering schools established at 
Mezieres. 

175 1 A military school established at Paris. 

1764 The Gardes Frangaises arranged into 
six battalions, each containing half 
a company of grenadiers (50 men), 
and five companies of fusiliers 
(120 men each). 

1776 The cent-Suisses disbanded. Count 
de Saint Germain, minister of war, 
introduces many reforms. 

1789 Reform of the army. — Creation of 
the national guard. 



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391 B.C.-305 A.D. 

Three or four centuries before the 
Christian era, on that vast territory com- 
prised between the ocean, the Pyrenees, 
the Mediterranean, the Alps, and the 
Rhine, Hved six or seven millions of 
men a bestial life, enclosed in dwellings 
dark and low, the best of them built 
of wood and clay, not inartistically com- 
posed of timber, earth, and stone, which 
surrounded and protected what they were 
pleased to call a town. 

Of even such towns there was scarcely 
any as yet, save in the most populous 
and least uncultivated portion of Gaul. 
In the north and the west were pal- 
try hamlets as transferable almost as 
the people themselves ; and on some 
islet amid the morasses, or in some 



24 FRANCE.— GAUL AND THE ROMANS. [391 B.C. 

hidden recess of the forest, were huge entrenchments formed of the trees 
that were felled, where the population, at the first sound of the war-cry, 
ran to shelter themselves, with their flocks and all their movables. Gaul 
was not occupied by one and the same nation, with the same traditions and 
the same chiefs. In the south were Iberians or Aquitanians, Phoenicians and 
Greeks ; in the north and north-west Kymrians or Belgians ; everywhere else 
Gauls or Celts, the most numerous settlers, who had the honor of giving their 
name to the country. Who were the first to come, then? and what 
was the date of the first settlement? Nobody knows. 

The Iberians, whom Roman writers call Aquitanians, dwelt at the 
foot of the Pyrenees, in the territory comprised between the mountains, 
the Garonne, and the ocean. They belonged to the race which, under 
the same appellation, had peopled Spain, and which abides still in the 
department of the Lower Pyrenees, under the name of Basques; a 
peopkt distinct from all its neighbors in features, costume, and especially 
language. 

Beyond a strip of land of uneven breadth, along the Mediterranean, 
and save the space peopled toward the south-west by the Iberians, the 
country, which received its name from the former of the two, was 
occupied by the Gauls and the Kymrians: by the Gauls in the center, 
south-east, and east, in the highlands of modern France, between the 
Alps, the Vosges, the mountains of Auvergne and the Cevennes ; by the 
Kymrians in the north, north-west, and west, in the lowlands, from the 
western boundary of the Gauls to the ocean. 

Whether the Gauls and the Kymrians were originally of the same 
race, or at least of races closely connected; whether they were both 
anciently comprised under the general name of Celts ; and whether the 
Kymrians, if they were not of the same race as the Gauls, belonged 
to that of the Germans, the final conquerors of the Roman empire, are 
questions which the learned have been a long, long while discussing 
without deciding. Each of these races, far from forming a single people 
bound to the same destiny and under the same chieftains, split into 
peoplets, more or less independent, who foregathered or separated 
according to the shifts of circumstances, and who pursued each on their 
own account and at their own pleasure, their fortunes or their fancies. 
From the earliest times to the first century before the Christian 
era, Gaul appears a prey to an incessant and disorderly movement of 
the population ; they change ' settlement and neighborhood ; disappear 
from one point and reappear at another; cross one another; avoid one 
another; absorb and are absorbed. And the movement was not con- 
fined within Gaul ; the Gauls of every race went, sometimes in very 
numerous hordes, to seek far away plunder and a settlement. Spain, 
Italy, Germany, Greece, Asia Minor and Africa have been in turn the 
theater of those Gallic expeditions which entailed long wars, grand displace- 
ments of peoples, and sometimes the formation of new nations. 



305A.D.] FRANCE.— GAUL AND THE ROMANS. 25 

Nevertheless the fusion of the Gauls of Galatia with the natives 
always remained very imperfect ; for toward the end of the fourth century 
of the Christian era they did not speak Greek, as the latter did, but 
their national tongue, that of the Kymro-Belgians ; and St. Jerome testi- 
fies that it differed very little from that which was spoken in Belgica 
itself, in the region of Treves. 

The details of the struggle between the Gauls and the Romans 
belong specially to Roman history; they have been transmitted to us 
by Roman historians ; and the Romans it was who were left ultimately 
in possession of Italy. 

1ST EPOCH. — Four distinct periods maybe recognized in this history; 
and each marks a different phase in the course of events, and, so to 
speak, an act of the drama. During the first period, which lasted forty-two 
years, from 391 to 349 B.C., the Gauls carried on a war of aggression 
and conquest against Rome. 

2D EPOCH. — During this second period Rome was more than once 
in danger. In the year 283 B.C. the Gauls destroyed one of her armies 
near Arctium and advanced to the Roman frontier. 

3D EPOCH. — In the third period of the struggle of Gauls and 
Romans the latter formed the resolution of no longer restraining them, 
but of subduing and conquering their territory. For thirty years (from 
200 to 170 B.C.) she proceeded, by means of war, founding Roman 
colonies and sowing dissensions among the Gallic tribes. The Senate 
of Rome increased the number of its colonies in Gaul, treated the 
subjugated tribes with moderation, and named the whole Cisalpine Gaul, 
This was afterward changed to Gallia Togata, or Roman Gaul. In 
the year 123 B.C., at some leagues to the north of the Greek city, 
near a little river, then called the Coenus, and nowadays the Arc, the 
consul C. Sextius Calvinus constructed an enclosure, aqueducts, baths, 
houses, a town in fact, which he called after himself Aq2i(B Scxtics, the 
modern Aix, the first Roman establishment in Transalpine Gaul. As 
in the case of Cisalpine Gaul, with Roman colonies came Roman intrigue, 
and dissensions got up and fomented among the Gauls. The Gauls ran 
of themselves into the Roman trap. Two of their confederations, the 
^duans, of whom mention has already been made, and the Allobrogians, 
who were settled between the Alps, the Isere, and the Rhone, were at 
war. A third confederation, the most powerful in Gaul at this time, 
the Arvernians, who were rivals of the ^duans, gave their countenance 
to the Allobrogians. The ^duans, with whom the Massilians had commer- 
cial dealings, solicited through these latter the assistance of Rome. A 
treaty was easily concluded. The yEduans obtained from the Romans 
the title friends and allies; and the Romans received from the ./Eduans 
that of brothers, which among the Gauls implies a sacred tie. 

In the year no B.C. the Cimbrians and the Teutons entered Gaul. 
Continuing their wanderings and ravages in Central Gaul they at last reached 



26 FRANCE.— GAUL AND THE ROMANS. [391 B.C. 

the Rhone. Their four successive armies were defeated and slaughtered by 
the barbarians ; but at last Marius attacked them (102 B.C.) near Aix {Agues 
Sextics). The battle lasted two days ; the first against the Ambrons, the 
second against the Teutons. Both were beaten. There remained the 
Cimbrians, who had repassed the Helvetic Alps and entered Italy on the 
north-east, by way of the Adige. Marius marched against them in July of 
the following year, loi B.C., and defeated them in the Raudine Plains, a large 
tract near Verceil. 

The victories of Marius arrested the torrent of the invasion, but did not 
dry up its source. A greater man than Marius, Julius Caesar in fact, saw that 
to effectually resist these clouds of barbaric assailants, the country into which 
they poured must be conquered and made Roman. The. conquest of Gaul 
was the accomplishment of that idea, and the decisive steps toward the 
transformation of the Roman republic into a Roman empire. 

The Helvetians, a Gallic race in Switzerland, found themselves 
incessantly threatened, ravaged, and invaded by the German tribes which 
pressed upon their frontiers. After some years of perplexity and internal 
discord, the whole Helvetic nation decided upon abandoning its territory, and 
going to seek in Gaul, westward, it is said, on the borders of the ocean, a 
more tranquil settlement. Being informed of this design, the Roman Senate 
and Caesar, at that time consul, resolved to protect the Roman province and 
their Gallic aUies, the ^duans, against this inundation of roving neighbors. 
The Helvetians persisted in their plan. When they would have entered 
Gaul, Caesar was there to forbid them passing. Thus foiled, they attempted 
another route across the Saone, and marched thence toward Western Gaul. 
But while they were arranging for the execution of this movement, Caesar, 
who had up to that time only four legions at his disposal, returned to Italy, 
brought away five fresh legions, and arrived on the left bank of the Saone at 
the moment when the rear guard of the Helvetians was embarking to rejoin 
the main body, which had already pitched its camp on the right bank. Caesar 
cut to pieces this rear guard, crossed the river in his turn with his legions, 
pursued them without relaxation, and before the end of the year he had 
completely beaten them and driven them back. Several days in succession 
he offered battle: but Ariovistus remained within his lines. Caesar then 
took the resolution of assailing the German camp. The struggle was 
obstinate, and not without moments of anxiety and partial check for the 
Romans ; but the genius of Caesar and strict discipline of the legions carried 
the day. The rout of the Germans was complete. 

The expulsion of the Helvetian emigrants and of the German invaders 
left the Romans and Gauls alone face to face ; and from that moment the 
Romans were, in the eyes of the Gauls, foreigners, conquerors, oppressors. 
During nine years, from A.U.C. 696 to 705, and in eight successive campaigns, 
he carried his troops, his Heutenants, himself, and, ere long, war or negotia- 
tion, corruption, discord, or destruction in his path, among the different 
nations and confederations of Gaul. 



305A.D.] FRANCE.— GAUL AND THE ROMANS. 27 

After six years' struggling Caesar was victor ; he had successively dealt 
with all the different populations of Gaul ; he had passed through and 
subjected them all, either by his own strong arm, or thanks to their rivalries. 
In the year 702 A.u.c. Caesar was informed while in Rome that a young 
Gaul called Vercingetorix had risen against the Roman power. 

At the news of this great movement Caesar immediately left Italy, and 
returned to Gaul. Starting at the beginning of 702 A.U.C, he passed two 
months in traversing within Gaul the Roman province and its neighborhood. 
In less than three months he had spread devastation throughout the insurgent 
country ; he had attacked and taken its principal cities. 

Alesia taken, and her brave defender a prisoner, Gaul was subdued. 
Caesar, however, had in the following year (A.U.C. 703) a campaign to make to 
subjugate some peoplets who tried to maintain their local independence. 

From the conquest of Gaul by Caesar to the establishment there of the 
Franks under Clovis, she remained for more than five centuries under Roman 
dominion ; first under the Pagan, afterward under the Christian empire. 

On quitting conquered Gaul to become master at Rome, Caesar neglected 
nothing to assure his conquest and make it conducive to the establishment of 
his empire. He formed of all the Gallic districts that he had subjugated a 
special province, which received the name of Gallia Coinata (Gaul of the 
long hair), while the old province was called Gallia Togata (Gaul of the toga). 
Caesar caused to be enrolled among his troops a multitude of Gauls, Belgians, 
Arvernians, and Aquitanians, of whose bravery he had made proof. He even 
formed, almost entirely of Gauls, a special legion, called Alaiida (lark), 
because it bore on the helmets a lark with outspread wings, the symbol of 
wakefulness. At the same time he gave in Gallia Coniata, to the towns and 
families that declared for him, all kinds of favors, the rights of Roman 
citizenship, the titles of allies, clients, and friends, even to the extent of the 
Julian name, a sign of the most powerful Roman patronage. 

Gaul lived, during those five centuries, under very different rules and 
rulers. They may be summed up under five names : ist, the Caesars, from 
Julius to Nero (from 49 B.C. to A.D. 68) ; 2d, the Flavians, from Vespasian to 
Domitian (from A.D. 69 to 95) ; 3d, the Antonines, from Nerva to Marcus 
Aurelius (from A.D. 96 to 180); 4th, the imperial anarchy, from Commodus to 
Carinus and Numerian (from A.D. 180 to 284); 5th, Diocletian (from A.D. 284 
to 305). Weary, however, of his burden, and disgusted with the imperfection 
of his work, Diocletian abdicated, A.D. 305. He was succeeded by Constantine 
the Great. Constantine, more clear-sighted and more fortunate than any of 
his predecessors, had understood his era, and opened his eyes to the new 
light which was rising upon the world. Far from persecuting the Christians, 
he had given them protection, countenance, and audience ; and toward him 
turned all their hopes. There is no knowing what was at that time the state 
of his soul, and to what extent it was penetrated by the first rays of Christian 
faith ; but it is certain that he was the first among the masters of the Roman 
world to perceive and accept its influence. With him Paganism fell, and 



28 



FRANCE.— CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. 



[312 



Christianity mounted the throne. With him the decay of Roman society 
stops, and the era of modern society commences. 



n. 

Christianity in Gadl -The Basbarians -The Merovingian 

DYNASTY.-GHARLEfflA&NE. 

HEN Christianity began to penetrate into Gaul, it 
encountered there two religions very different one 
from the other, and infinitely more different from the 
Christian religion ; these were Druidism and Paganism 
— hostile one to the other, but with a hostility polit- 
ical only, and unconnected with those really religious 
questions that Christianity was coming to raise. 
Druidism, considered as a religion, was a mass of confusion. A 
general and strong, but vague and incoherent, belief in the immor- 
tality of the soul was its noblest characteristic. But with the reli- 
gious elements, at the same time coarse and mystical, were united 
two facts of importance : the Druids formed a veritable ecclesiastical 
corporation ; and in the wars with Rome this corporation became 
the most faithful representatives and the most persistent defenders 
of Gallic independence and nationality. 
The Graeco-Roman Paganism was, at this time, far more powerful than 
Druidism in Gaul, and yet more lukewarm and destitute of all religious 
vitality. It was the religion of the conquerors and of the State, and was 
invested, in that quality, with real power ; but beyond that, it had but the 
power derived from popular customs and superstitions. Such were the two 
religions with which in Gaul nascent Christianity had to contend. Compared 
with them it was. to all appearance, very small and very weak ; but it was 
provided with the most efficient weapons for fighting and beating them, for it 
had exactly the moral forces which they lacked. It is impossible to assign with 
exactness the date of the first foot-prints and first labors of Christianity in 
Gaul. Lyons became the chief center of Christian preaching and association 
in Gaul. As early as the first half of the second century, there existed there 
a Christian congregation regularly organized as a church. 

It was under Marcus Aurelius, the most philosophical and most 
conscientious of the emperors, that there was enacted for the first time in 
Gaul, against nascent Christianity, that scene of tyranny and barbarity which 
was to be renewed so often and during so many centuries in the midst of 
Christendom itself ; for in the year 177 that is, only three years after the 
victory of Marcus Aurelius over the Germans there took place, undoubtedly 




SHOWlJNCj A (^UlNiNlieil^JJ HlbiUKY Ut int. WUKJLJJ 



9—194 A.D. 

EGYPT (A Province of Rome). 

171 — Revolt against Rome. 

ROME. 

14-Deatli of AUGUSTUS; TIBERIUS the em- 
peror. 

31— CALIGULA. 

41— CLAUDIUS. 54— NERO. 

68— GALEA and NERO. 

69— OTHO, VITELLIUS, VESPASIAN emperors. 

79-TITUS. 81— DOMITIAN. 96— NERVA. 

98— TROJAN. 
1 1 T— HADRIAN emperor. 
138— ANTONINUS PIUS emperor. 
161— MARCUS AURELIUS and LUCIUS VERUS 

emperors. 
169— VERUS dies. 
180— COMMODUS. 
185— ORIGEN born. 
193— Disorders in Rome. 
194— SEVERUS sole emperor. 

GREECE (A Province of Rome) 

52— The Apostle PAUL in Athens ; Nero in Greece. 
122— HADRIAN in Greece. 

Remained under the dominion of Rome until 
476 (overthrow of the Western Empire). 

GAUL (France and Germany). 

9 — VARUS and the Roman Legion destroyed by 
HERMAN, the German hero. 
14-16— Campaigns of GERMANICUS successful. 
70— CIVILIS surrenders. 
79— Deatt of S ABINUS and his wife. 

The land occupied by over forty different 

TRIBES. 



BRITAIN. 

43— CLAUDIUS in Britain. 

47 — liOndon founded by the Romans. 

61— Insurrection of BOADICEA. 

78— AGRICOLA in Britain. 

84— AGRICOLA sails around Britain 
120— HADRIAN in Britain. 
121— Hadrian's Wall built. 
139— Conquest of LOLLIUS URBICUS in Britain ; 

Wall of ANTONINUS built. 
183— Success of ULPIUS MARCELLUS. 



202—298. 



IRELAND. 



During the first and second centuries Ireland is 
governed by native kings. There were four 
petty kingdoms, Ulster, Connaught, Munster, 
and Leinster. Over these there was a principal 
king who had his residence at Tara. The an- 
cient religion was Druidism. 



CHART III. 



FROM BIRTH OF CHRIST 
TO 600 A.D. 



273— AURELIAN regains possession. 

288— ACHILIUS revolts in Upper Egypt. 

297— Alexandria captured by DIOCLETIAN, who 

subdues the revolt. 



202— Christians persecuted. 

211— CAR AC ALL A and GET A joint emperors. 

2 12~G ETA murdered. 217— MACRINUS emperor. 

218— ELAGABALUS. 

222— ALEXANDER SEVERUS. 

231— Persian war. 

233— SEVERUS triumphs. 

235— MAXIMIAN murders SEVERUS. 

238— Four emperors. 

244— GONDIAMUS murdered; PHILIP the Arabian. 

249— DECIUS emperor. 

250 — First invasion of the Goths. 

251— GALLUS emperor. 254— VALERIAN. 

259— GotllS take Trapesus. 

260— GALLIENUS sole emperor. 

268— CLAUDIUS emperor. 

269— Defeats the Goths. 

270— AURELIUS emperor ; defeats the Goths. 

275— TACITUS emperor. 276-PROBUS. 

277— Defeats the Alemanni. 282— CARUS. 

284— DIOCLETIAN. [the empire. 

292— CONSTANTINE and GALERIUS ; division of 

298-^Defeat of NARSES. 



-The Goths invade Greece. 

-The Herculi invade Greece and are repulsed by 
DEXIPPUS. 



262 
267- 



214— First contact of the Romans with the Germans 

of the Upper Rhine. 
263— The Franks invade Gaul. 
273— AURELIAN in Gaul ; battle of Chalons-sur- 

Marne. 
277— PROBUS makes an expedition into Gaul; the 

Franks settle here about this time. 



208— Expedition of SEVERUS to Britain. 

21 1— SEVERUS dies at York. 

296— Britain recovered by CONSTANTINE. 



227— CORMAC ULLA king at Tara. 

266— CORMAC ULLA abdicates the throne and is 
killed by the Druids for being in secret a Chris- 
tian. After him came a long line of little note. 



Designed for Gay's Standard Histories, by wlliLIAM GA 



IKNT AND MODERN, FROM )i^{){) B.C. TO 1884 A.D. 



305—396. 



79— Pagan worship prohibited and their famous tem- 
ples destroyed. 
95— Becomes a province of the Eastern Empire. 



06-CONSTANTINE the great emperor. 

07-Kevolts of MAXENTIUS. 

12-I>eatl» of MAXENTIUS and success of CON- 
STAXTINE. 

23-CONSTANTINE sole emperor. 

25— First genera! council of the Church at Nicea. 

26— Ariaii controversy. 

36— ARIUS dies. 

37- CONSTANS and CONST ANTINE II. joint em- 
perors. 

38-Death of EUSEBIUS. 

47— Synod of Sardica. 

61— JULIAN emperor. 

62— Religious toleration. 

63— JULIAN killed ; Persian war. 

75— Invasion of the Huns. 

90— Suppression of Paganism. 



95— ALARIC I. invades Greece. 



05— Tlie Franks defeated by CONSTANTIUS. 
55 — Tlie Franks take Cologne ; JULIAN named pre- 
fect of Transalpine Gaul. 
57 — JULIAN defeats six German kings. 
70 — Tlie Sa.xons land in Gaul. 
76— Huns settle in France. 
82— ALARIC king of GauL 



06-CONSTANTINE dies at York. 
67-9— THEODOSIUS in Britain. 
96— HONORIUS invited to Britain to fight the Scots 
and Picts. 



t22-FIACHA SRAEBHTINE slain by the three Col- 
las. He was succeeded by kings of no impor- 
tance. 

178— CRIMTHAN poisoned by his sister ; NIAL.of the 
nine hostages, succeeds him, and after him 
DATHI, who was killed while crossing the 
Alps. 

187-ST. PATRICK born in Gaul. 



GOTLAND. 

Occupied by the two Celtic races of Picts and 
Scots, the chief seat of the latter being Ireland. 
The Scots' original seat in Northern Britain was 
in Argyle, which they acquired by colonization 
or conquest before the end of the fifth century. 



402—597. 



410- 
451- 
475- 

476- 

489- 
493- 

529 

552- 

568 

590 
596 



-Rome sacked by the Huns. 

■The Ostrogoths overrun Italy. 

-THEODORIC the Ostrogoth lays waste Thessaly 

and Thrace. 
-ODOACER captures Rome and establishes the 

kingdom of Italy. 
-Ostrogotlis return. 
-THEODORIC founds the Ostrogothic kingdom 

of Italy, Hungary and South Germany. 
-Tlie Justinian Code promulgated. 
Ostrogotlis expelled. 
-NARSES, governor of Italy, invites the Lombards 

from Germany 
-GREGORY, the great pope of Rome. 
-Tlie Lombards overrun Italy. 
N. B. — Ancient Historv ends with the oveh- 

IHROW OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE IN 476. 



442 — ATTILA ravajges Thrace and Macedon. 

475-THEODORIC, the Ostrogoth, lays waste Thessa- 
ly and Thrace. 

502— Greece devastated by CHARBADES, the Per- 
sian. 

581— Slavonians overrun Greece. 



413— GONDICARIUS founds the kingdom of ■ Bur- 
gundy. 

420— PH ARAMOND begins the kingdom of the Franks. 

426— .i*:LIUS defeats the Franks on the Rhine. 

438 — Tlie Franks get a permanent foothold. 

451— Battle of Chalons. 

458— CHILDERIC, king of the Franks, deposed. 

462 — Tlie Ripurian Franks take Cologne. 

463— CHILDERIC recalled by the Franks. 

486— CLOVIS I. defeats the Romans. 

496~Baptl8m of CLOVIS. 

507— CLOVIS defeats and slays ALARIC II. and 
founds the kingjom of the Franks. 

511 — CLOVIS died in Paris, leaving his kingdom to his 
four sons. 

558 — CLOTAIRE, his son, unites the kingdom. 

561 — CLOTAIRE dies ; the kingdom is again divided. 

581 — Paris mostly destroyed by fire. 

402-1 8— Tlie Romans gradually retire from Britain. 
429-49 — The Saxons^ and Angles are called in to aid 

the natives in their wars. 
45.5— The Angles drive the Britons into Wales. 
457 — The Saxon Heptarchy. 
477 — The second Saxon invasion. 
491 — Tlie kingdom of Sussex. 
495— The third Saxon invasion. 
506-542— Reign of King ARTHUR (legendary). 
519— The kingdom of Wessex established by CERDIC. 
,527 — Kourth Saxon invasion ; Essex established. 
547— Northuinbria established as a kingdom. 
565— ETHELBERT king of Kent. 
577 — AVest Saxons defeat the Britons. 
'586— K-lngdom of Mercia founded. 
597— ST. .A^UGUSTINE arrives. 

403— ST. PATRICK taken to Ireland as a prisoner, 
and after seven years is liberated. 

432— He returns to convert the Irish people. 

438 — He reforms the laws and customs ; the compilatic* 
of the Brehon Code. 

493— Death of ST. PATRICK. 

503— CONAIRE II. reigning in Ireland. 

504— MUIRCHEATACH the first Christian king. 

.554— Destruction of Tara. 

556-Oeath of DA.MAID. 

566-93-Belgn of HUGH II. 

503— FERGUS arrives in Scotland from Ireland and 
founds a kingdom. 

562— ST. COLUMBA lands in Scotland; CONAL, 
great-grandson of FERGUS, king of the British 
Scots, succeeded by his nephew AIDEN. 



56 Chapel St., New Haven, Conn. COPYKIGHT 1883. 



GAY'S CHROXOLOGICAL CHARTS, 

' SHOWING A CONNECTED HISTORY OF THE WORLD, ANCIENT AND MODERN. FROM 2800 B.C. TO 1884 AD. 



t) 104 A.I). 

I'lGYFl (A Fkovi.nce oi- Ro.mk;. 

ITl— Kevole aKaindt Home. 

ROME. 

14 I>«atli of A UO U.ST US; TIIiBKIUS the cm- 



6'1-NBKO. 



.'jr (,Ai,if;t'i-A. 

41 (;i,AU(jii;s, 

»H (; A (.If A and NKKO, 

<M> </niO, VITKI.MUS, VKSI'ASIAN emperor*. 

TJ> TITUS. Sl-DOiMJTIAN, OO-.VIikVA. 

«H TKOJAN, 

117 IIAOKIANompcror. 

1 :iK ANI ONINUS l'IC;S ctnprror. 

Mil MAKCUS AUKKMUS and LUCIUS VERUS 

<in[)i:ror«i, 

100 VKKIJSflicH. 

IHO COMMOUUS. 



INr> 

it>:t 

KM 



OKH.I'.N l.'.i 
SKVI'.KUSiio 



GREECE (A Pkovin( i;<)i Komk) 

«a Tim ApiJNtIc I'AUI.lii AiIiciib; Ncm in (Jrcccc. 
lit!) HADRIAN In (irrrin. 

HlininliKMl iiniliT [lie ilorninioii of Kiime until 
^7(1 (ovmlirow of llie Woitcrii Kin|>lrci. 

GAUL (I'KANCK ANI) CiKKMANV). 

VAKUS 1111(1 llie Uoinuii I.cKlon dc-Hlroycd by 
lll'.UMAN. Ilir (iiTiniin hero, 
14 1(1 4'iiiii|MiliriiMof (il'.KMANIC'USii'icccMful. 

70 ( IVIMSslHMllllllN. 

70 U«iitli of SAIlINUKiiml hU wife. 

TlIU I.ANU DCLlJI'mO IIV OVBK t'OKTV DIIM'IIKUNT 

riiiiiitH, 



^Rl TAIN. 

4:1 ClAI'lHliS in llriliiln. 

47 IjOImIoii IoimkIi'iI I>v Ihr Unmann, 

01 ■■INIillcctloii .<! MOADU'KA. 

7H A(.l<l((il.A In linl.iin. 

HI A(;i<l('OI..\ H.ills .irotinil Ittilain 

1-/0 IIAHKIAN in MiK.nn. 

fll ■■iMlrliiii'M VV.illlmili. 

i:tlt <'«>iia|ii4<Mtoi l.dl.l.U'S I'UIIK'l'S in Rritniii ; 

VV.ill ol ANTONINUS l.iiiU. 

188- NiKTCMMof UI.I<1US MAKl 1CLI.US. 



IRELAND. 



Ulirlliu; Ihr lii.Ht ami scroiul ct-nliirios Irrlnnil is 
Hiivoincil hv niitlve kiiiKS. Tlu'rc wrro lour 
(letly kln(!iloms, IMslor, I onnaiit;hl, Munstt-r, 
anit I.cinsUM , Over llu'sc ihcic was a pnmi|iai 
kiiiK who had his ti'sidiMnc at Tara. The an- 
I'iciit rcliKion WUH I)i'uidi.sn\. 



CHART HI. 



FROM BIRTH OV CHRIST 
TO (iOO A.D. 



202—298. 



273 AURELIANresraiMposaesMon. 

288 - ACHILIUS revolts in Upper E)rypt. 

2»7 -Alexandria c-ptured by DIOCLETIAN, who 

itubdues the revolt. 



202 
21 1 
212 
218 
222 

2:<l 
2:{:i 

2.T.> 
2:1 8 
211 
24!> 
2u0 
2'>l 

2r.» 

200 
208 
20» 
270 
27.'. 
277 
281 
202 
2U8 



-Cltriatlan* f/crsetuicd. 
-f.AKACAI.LA and OETA loint ernperorii. 
f/KTA murdered. 217-MACRlNLS emperor. 
Kl, A'iA HAM'S. 
AI.KXANMKR SEVERfS. 
Prrnlan war. 
SKVIvKL'S triumph<i. 
.MA.XI.MIAN murdertSEVERtS. 
Pour <mpcror«. . ^. 

<,')M<IA.vn;S murdered: I'HILIPthe Arabian. 
1)1-,' US imporor. 
Flrxt ouMHion of the Goths. 

i.AI.I.IS emperor. 264-V ALERIAN. 

(;otllM cake Trai>ei.u». 
-(.AI.I-IK.NUS «>lc emperor, 
f I.AI'DM.'S emperor. 
lli'lrHlN the Goths. 

\ I, l< l,l,lt;S emperor ; defeats the Goths. 

I A( ITUS emper.ir. 276-l*ROBUS. 

-nd'cnta the Alemanni. 282-CARUS. 

l>IO( I.KTIAN. [the empire. 

( ONS'I ANTINR and GALERIUS ; division of 
Drn^ut of .NARSES. 



20'i Tin- (;oihs invade Greece. 

207 The Hcrculi invade Greece and arc repulsed by 
UfcXIPl'US. 



21 I I'lrnt ront.nci of the Romans with the Germans 

of the Uppei Rhine. 
20:» TIm< I'Vanks invade (Jaul. 
27:i AURELIA.V in (iaul ; battle of Chalons-sur- 

Marne. 
277-I'R()m'S makes an expedition into Gaul; the 

■'ranks settle here about this time. 



208 Kxprdltlon of SEVERUS to Britain. 
21 I MA llKl'Siliesat York. 
2t>U-llrllulll recovered by CONSTANTINE. 



227-(\)RM AC ULLA kinc at T.ira. 

200 COR.MAC ULLA abdicates the throne .ind is 
killed by the Druids for beinji in secret a Chris- 
tian. After him came a long line of little note. 



:]0r)-39fi. 



379 — Pasau worship prohibred and their famous tem- 
ples destroyed. 
395— Becomes a province of the ELastem Empire. 



306 -CONSTANTINE the great emperor. 

307 KpvoKh of MAXENTIUS. 

312 Dcalli of MA.XE.VTIUS and success of CON- 
STANTINE. 

323-CO.NSTANTI.NE sole emperor. 

325— FIrM genera! council of the Church at Nicea. 

326— .iriaii controversy. 

336-ARILS dies. 

337-CONSTANS and CONSTANTINE II. joint em- 
perors. 

338-Dcatliof EUSEBIUS. 

347--Syiiod of Sardica. 

361-JULIAN emperor. 

362— KolisloaH toleration. 

363-jrLIAN killed ; Persian war. 

37.'i- Ilivaitloii ot the Huns. 

390— ^iU|>prcitalofi of Paganism. 



395— ALARIC I. invades Greece. 



30.';-TIlo Fr.-inks dcfe.Med by CONSTANTIUS. 
355— The Franks take Cologne ; Jl'LIA.N named pre- 
fect of Transalpine Gaul. 
3,j7 JULIAN defeats si.x German kings. 
370-Tho Sa.xons land in Gaul. 
370— Iliiun settle in France. 
382-ALARlC king of Gaul. 



306-CONSTANTINE dies at York. 
367 9-THEOIX)SIUS in Britain. 
39«— HONORIUS invited to Britain to fight the Scots 
and Picts. 



322-FIACHA SRAEBHTINE slain by the three Col- 
las. He wiis succeeded by kings of no impor- 
tance 

378-CRIMTHAN poisoned by his sister ; NIAL.of the 
nine hostages, succeeds him, and after him 
D.\THI, who was killed while crossing the 
Alps. 

387-ST. PATRICK b,jrn in Gaul. 



SCOTLAND. 



Occnpled by the two Celtic races of Pi«s and 
Scots, the chief seat of the l.ntter h^inir Ireland. 
TheScr: • ------- -v -u .._ ., 

in Atk-' 
or con: 



402-597. 



410- 

451 

475 



489- 
493- 

529 
552- 
568 

5»0 
596- 



Ronir s.\ckevl by the Huns. 

The t>stro!^iths overrun Italy. 

THEimORIC the Ostrogoth lays wa.ste Thessaly 

and Thrace. 
-ODOjVCER captures Rome .uid establishes the 

kingdom of Italy. 
Ostrocotba return. 
THEODORIC founds the l>stroKolhic killKdoa 

of Italy, Hungary .ind Siuilh Germany, 
The ,lustini.\n C>xle promulgated. 
OatroKOtha e.\i>cllnl. 
N.\RSES, governor ot Italy, invites the I.omliards 

from Germany 
C.REGORY. the great pope ot Rome. 
-The Lomb.irds overrun Italy. 
N. U.— .-Vmiknt HisroKS knus wini thk ovkk- 

IMKOW OK rilK WliSTKKX EmI'IKK IN 476. 



442 \TTI LA ravages Thrace and Macedon. 

475 THKODORIC, the Ostrogoth, lays waste ThesM. 

Iv and Thrace. 
502 «r««ece devastated by CHARBADES, the Per- 

sian. 
5S I sliivoiilaiiM overrun Greece. 



413 

420 
426 
438 
451 
4 58 
402 
403 
480 
490 
607 

611- 

658- 

501 

581- 

4 02 
429 

455 
45 7 
477 
491 
495 
506 
519 
627 
647 
665 
577 
'586 
597 



(lONDICARIUS founds the kingdom of Bur- 
gundy. 

PHARA.MONI) begins the kingilomof the I'"runkJ. 

.•V:i.IUS defeats the Franks on the Rhine. 

The I'r.mks get a iH-rinanent liMithold. 

Bailie ..I Cli.dons. 

( llll.DI.KK . king of the Franks, deposed. 

The Uiiiiin.m Kr.inks take Cologne 

( llll.liFKR recilKd by the Franks 

t I.OVIS I. defeats the Romans. 

Haptlauiof CLOVIS. 

CI.OVIS defeats and slays Al.ARK II. and 

founds the kingjom of the I'raiiks. 
-CLOVIS died In Paris, leaving his kingdom (o Ills 

four sons. 
-CLOTAIRE, his son, unites the kingdom. 
-(T.OTAIRE dies ; the kingdom is again divided. 
-Paria mostly destroyed by lire. 

I 8 The Romans gradually retire from Britain. 

19 The Saxons; .-ind Angles arc called in to aid 
the natives in their wars. 

The Angles drive the Britons into Wales. 

The S.non Heptarchy. 

Thesc.rm.l Saxon invasion. 

The kingdom ol Sussex. 

The third Saxon invasiim. 
542 Keluii of King ARTHUR {legendary) 

The kingdom ..f VVessex established byCKRDIC. 

Fourth Saii.n invasion ; Essex established. 

i\orlhuiiil>ria I'si.ibhsliril .is a kingdom. 
-KIHKI.HICK I king of Kent. 
-Wen! Saxons defeat the Britons. 
-Kllilldoin of .Mercia founded. 
-ST. At (VLSTINE arrives. 



ST. PATRICK taken to Ireland as a priwrticr, 

.ind .ifter seven years is liberated. 
lie returns to convert the Irish people. 
He reforms the laws and customs ; tile i 

..f the Brehon Code. 
Death of SI PATRICK, 
CO.NAIRE II reigning in Ireland. 
MflRf lIEATAfTi the first < hristian king. 



impilatic* 



432 

438 

493 
603 
50 I 

5 .'> I 
550 
506 

503— FERGUS arrives in Scotland from Ireland and 
founds a kingdom. 

-,«(•> ■^T (IlIIMltl I .n.l^ .r. 'i.,.tl;inr1 ( < I N A I . 



Di-Hlruetloil of Tara. 
Death .t DA.M MI) 
93 lieisiioi HUGH U. 



Designed for Gay's Standivrd Histories, by "WTLIilAM GAY &Co.. 256 Chapel St.. Kew Haven. Conn. COPYKIGHT 1883. 



8i3] FRANCE.— CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. 29 

by his orders, the persecution which caused at Lyons the first Gahic 
martyrdom. This was the fourth, or, according to others, the fifth great 
imperial persecution of the Christians. 

The martyrs of Lyons in the second century wrote, so to speak, their 
own history ; for it Avas their conrades, eye-witnesses of their sufferings and 
their virtue, who gave an account of them in a long letter addressed to their 
friends in Asia Minor, and written with passionate sympathy and pious 
prolixity, but bearing all the characteristics of truth. 

But Christian zeal was superior in perseverance and efificacy to Pagan 
persecution. St. Pothinus the Martyr was succeeded as bishop at Lyons by 
St. Irenjeus, the most learned, most judicious, and most illustrious of the 
early heads of the Church in Gaul. At the commencement of the fourth 
century their w^ork was, if not accomplished, at any rate triumphant ; and 
when, A.D. 312, Constantine declared himself a Christian, he confirmed the 
fact of the conquest of the Roman world, and of Gaul in particular, by 
Christianity. No doubt the majority of the inhabitants were not as yet 
Christians ; but it was clear that the Christians were in the ascendant and had 
command of the future. In 241 A.D. is the first appearance of the name 
of Franks in history, but it indicates no particular single people, only a 
confederation of German peoples, settled or roving along the right bank of the 
Rhine, from the Mayn to the ocean. The number and names of the tribes 
joined in this confederation are uncertain. From the middle of the third to 
the beginning of the fifth century the history of the Western Empire presents 
an almost uninterrupted series of these invasions on the part of the Franks, 
together with the different relationships established between them and the 
imperial government. 

After the commencement of the fifth century, from A.D. 406 to 409, it 
was no longer by incursions limited to certain points, and sometimes repelled 
with success, that the Germans harassed the Roman provinces. Then took 
place throughout the Roman empire, in the East, as well as in the West, in 
Asia and Africa as well as in Europe, the last grand struggle between the 
Roman armies and the barbarians. It was in Gaul that it was most obstinate 
and most promptly brought to a decisive issue, and the confusion there was as 
great as the obstinacy. No later than A.D. 412 two German nations, the 
Visigoths and the Burgundians, took their stand definitely in Gaul, and 
founded there two new kingdoms : the Visigoths, under their kings Ataulph 
and Wallia, in Aquitania and Narbonness ; the Burgundians, under their kings 
Gundichaire and Gundioch, in Lyonness, from the southern point of Alsatia 
right into Provence, along the two banks of the Saone and the left bank of the 
Rhone, and also in Switzerland. In 451 the arrival in Gaul of the Huns and 
their king Attila gravely complicated the situation. Attila, perceiving that a 
battle was inevitable, halted in a position for delivering it. " It was," says 
the Gothic historian Jornandis, " a battle which for atrocity, multitude, horror, 
and stubbornness, has not the like in the records of antiquity." Theodoric, 
Hng of the Visigoths, was killed. At this battle of Chalons in 451, he drove 



30 FRANCE.— CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. [312 

the Huns out of Gaul and was the last victory in Gaul, gained still in the 
name of the Roman empire. Twenty-four years after, the very name of the 
Roman Empire disappeared with the last of the emperors. Thirty years after 
the battle at Chalons the Franks settled in Gaul were not yet united as one 
nation. 

Clovis was fifteen or sixteen years old when he became king of the 
Salian Franks of Tournay. Five years afterward his ruling passion, ambition, 
exhibited itself, together with that mixture of boldness and craft which was 
to characterize his whole life. He first attacked the Roman patrician 
Syagrius, and, after putting him to death, settled himself at Soissons. His 
marriage with Clotilde, niece of Gondebaud, then king of the Burgundians 
(493), was a great matter. Clovis and the Franks were still Pagans ; 
Gondebaud and the Burgundians were Christians, but Arians ; Clotilde was a 
Catholic Christian. The consequences of the marriage justified before long 
the importance which had on all sides been attached to it. In 496 the 
Allemannians crossed the river and invaded the settlements of the Franks, 
Clovis went to the aid of his confederation, and attacked the Allemannians at 
Tolbiac, near Cologne. The battle was going ill ; the Franks were wavering 
and Clovis was anxious. Before setting out he had, it is said, promised his 
wife that if he were victorious he would turn Christian. The tide of battle 
turned : the Franks recovered confidence and courage ; and the Allemannians, 
beaten and seeing their king slain, surrendered themselves to Clovis, saying, 
" Cease, of thy grace, to cause any more of our people to perish ; for we are 
thine." The baptism of Clovis took place in the Cathedral of Reims on 
Christmas Day, 496. 

Clovis Avas not a man to omit turning his Catholic popularity to the 

account of his ambition. He learned that Gondebaud, disquieted, no doubt, 

at the conversion of his powerful neighbor, had just made a vain attempt, at 

a conference held at Lyons, to reconcile in his kingdom the Catholics and the 

Arians. Clovis suddenly entered Burgundy with his army. Gondebaud, 

betrayed and beaten at the first encounter at Dijon, fled to the south of his 

kingdom, and went and shut himself up in Avignon. Clovis pursued and 

besieged him there ; and having reduced him to the humble position of a 

tributary, he transferred to the Visigoths of Aquitania and their king, Alaric 

II., his views of conquest. The king of the Visigoths prepared for the 

struggle, and the two armies met a few leagues from Poitiers. The battle 

was severe, but Alaric II. was beaten, and Clovis pursued his march to 

Bordeaux, and settled there for the winter. Then he marched on to Toulouse? 

which he occupied v/ithout opposition. There his course of conquest was 

destined to end, for he halted at Tours, and stayed there for some time to 

enjoy the fruits of his victories and establish his power. It appears that 

even the Britons of Armorica at this time tendered him their subordination 

and homage, if not their acutal submission. Anastasius, emperor of the 

East, with whom he had already had some communication, sent to him at 

Tours a solemn embassy, bringing him the titles and insignia of patrician and 



:Si3] FRANCE.— CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. 



31 



^consul. On leaving the city of Tours Clovis repaired to Paris, where he 
fixed the seat of his government. 

Paris was certainly the political center of his dominions, the intermediate 
■point between the early settlements of his race and himself in Gaul and his 
new Gallic conquests ; but he lacked some of the possessions nearest to him 
and most naturally, in his own opinion, his. To the east, north, and south- 
west of Paris were settled some independent Prankish tribes, governed by 
chieftains with the name of kings. So soon as he had settled at Paris it was 
the one fixed idea of Clovis to reduce them all to subjection. He had 
conquered the Burgundians and the Visigoths ; it remained for him to 
conquer and unite together all the Franks. So Clovis remained sole king of 
the Franks when all the independent chieftains had disappeared. 

In 511, the very year of his death, the last act of Clovis in life was the 
convocation at Orleans of a council, which bound the Church closely to the 
State, and gave to royalty, even in ecclesiastical matters, great power. The 
bishops, on breaking up, sent these canons to Clovis, praying him to give 
them the sanction of his adhesion, which he did. A few months afterward, 
on the 27th of November, 511, Clovis died at Paris. 

From A.D. 511 to A.D. 752, — that is, from the death of Clovis to the 
accession of the Carlovingians — is two hundred and forty-one years, which was 
the duration of the dynasty of the Merovingians. During this time there 
reigned twenty-eight Merovingian kings. Five of these kings, Clotaire I., 
Clotaire II., Dagobert I., Thierry IV., and Childeric III., alone, at different 
intervals, united under their power all the dominions possessed by Clovis or 
his successors. The other kings of this line reigned only over special 
kingdoms, formed by virtue of divers partitions at the death of their general 
possessor. From A.D. 511 to 638 five such partitions took place. Then a new 
division of the Frankish dominions took place, no longer into three, but two 
kingdoms, Austrasia being one, and Neustria and Burgundy the other. This 
was the definitive dismemberment of the great Frankish dominion to the 
time of its last two Merovingian kings, Thierry IV. and Childeric III., who 
were kings in name only, dragged from the cloister as ghosts from the tomb, 
to play a motionless part in the drama. For a long time past the real power 
had been in the hands of that valiant Austrasian family which was to furnish 
the dominions of Clovis with a new dynasty and a greater king than Clovis. 

The last of the kings sprung from Clovis acquitted themselves too ill or 
not at all of their task ; and the inayors of the palace were naturally 
summoned to supply their deficiencies, and to give the populations assurance 
of more intelligence and energy in the exercise of power. The last years of 
the Merovingian line were full of their struggles ; but a cause far more 
general and more powerful than these differences and conflicts in the very 
heart of the Frankish dominions determined the definitive fall of that line 
and the accession of another dynasty ; we allude to the great invasions of 
barbarians which took place during the sixth century. 

The first chief of these mayors of the palace known in history was 



32 FRANCE.— CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. [312 

Pepin, of Lauden, who died in 639. His son was inglorious, but his grandson, 
by his daughter Biga, Pepin of Heristal, was for twenty-seven years the real 
sovereign of Austrasia and all the Frankish dominions under the title of duke. 
On the death of this Pepin, December i6th, 714, his son Charles, then twenty- 
five, was proclaimed Duke of Austrasia. He was destined to be known as 
Charles Martel. He repelled an invasion of the Frisons and Saxons, and 
then turned against the Neustrians, whom he twice defeated. The invasion 
of the Arabs soon placed Aquitania and Vasconia within his grasp. Eudes, 
or Eudon, duke of these provinces, had twice made a gallant effort to repel 
the formidable soldiers of the crescen* ; at last he sought assistance of the 
Franks, and repaired in all haste to Charles Martel to invoke his aid against 
the common enemy, who, after having crushed the Aquitanians, would soon 
attack the Franks, and subject them in turn to ravages and outrages. 
Charles did not require solicitation. He took an oath of the duke of 
Aquitania to acknowledge his sovereignty and thenceforth remain faithful to 
him ; and then, summoning all his warriors, he set himself in motion tOAvard 
the Loire. It was time. The Arabs had spread over the whole country 
between the Garonne and the Loire. Abdel-Rhaman, their chief, fixed his 
camp between the Vienne and the Clain, near Poitiers ; or according to others, 
nearer Tours, at Mire, in a plain still called the Landes de Charlemagne. 

The Franks arrived. It was in the month of September or October, 732, 
and the two armies passed a week face to face, at one time remaining in their 
camps, at another deploying without attacking. At the breaking of the 
seventh or eighth day, Abdel-Rhaman, at the head of his cavalry, ordered a 
general attack ; and the Franks received it with serried ranks, astounding 
their enemies by their tall stature, stout armor, and their stern immobility. 
The Franks, finally, had the advantage ; a great number of Arabs and Abdel- 
Rhaman himself were slain. At the approach of night both armies retired to 
their camps. The next day, at dawn, the Franks moved out of theirs, to 
renew the engagement ; the Arabs had decamped silently in the night. Then 
the great duke of Austrasia strengthened his power by occupying Burgundy 
and Provence. After this, while making use, at the expense of the Church 
and for political interests, of material force, Charles Martel was far from 
misunderstanding her moral influence, and the need he had of her support at 
the very time he was incurring her anathemas. Not content with defending 
Christianity against Islamism, he aided it against Paganism. 

Charles Martel had not time to carry out effectually, with respect to the 
papacy, this policy of protection and at the same time of independence ; he 
died at the close of this same year, October 22d, 741, aged fifty-two. Five 
years after the death of Charles Martel, in 746 in fact, Carloman, already 
weary of the burden of power, and seized with a fit of religious zeal, 
abdicated his share of sovereignty, left his dominions to his brother Pepin, 
and withdrew into Italy to the monastery of Monte Cassino. 

Pepin, less enterprising than his father, but judicious, persevering and 
capable of discerning what was at the same time necessary and possible, was 



8i5] FRANCE.— CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. 33 

well fitted to continue and consolidate what he would probably never have 
begun and created. Like his father, he, on arriving at power, showed 
pretensions to moderation, or, it might be said, modesty. He, as well as his 
brother, had taken only the title of Mayor of the Palace at first, but at the 
end of ten years he obtained the sanction of Pope Zachary, and in March, 752, 
he was proclaimed king of the Franks. After Pepin had settled matters with 
the Church, and the warlike questions remaining for him to solve, he directed 
all his efforts toward the two countries which he longed to reunite to the 
Gallo-Frankish monarchy, — this is, Sephinania, still held by the Arabs, and 
Aquitania, the independence of which was defended by Duke Eudes' 
grandson ; and soon the conquest of all Southern Gaul extended the power 
and territory of his monarchy further and higher than it had yet ever been, 
even under Clovis. 

In 753 Pope Stephen, threatened by Astolphus, king of the Lombards, 
repaired to Paris, and asked the assistance of Pepin and his warriors. The 
Franks crossed the Alps with enthusiasm, succeeded in beating the Lombards, 
and shut up in Pavia King Astolphus, who was eager to purchase peace at 
any price. He obtained it on two principal conditions: 1st, That he would 
not again make a hostile attack on Roman territory or wage war against the 
pope or people of Rome ; 2d, That he would henceforth recognize the 
sovereignty of the Franks, pay them tribute, and cede forthwith to Pepin the 
towns and all the lands belonging to the jurisdiction of the Roman Empire 
Avhich were at that time occupied by the Lombards. Pepin disposed of them 
forthwith, in favor of the Popes, by that famous deed of gift which 
comprehended pretty nearly what has since formed the Roman States, and 
which founded the temporal independence of the papacy, the guarantee of its 
independence in the exercise of the spiritual power. 

Pepin had thus completed in France and extended in Italy the work 
which his father, Charles Martel, had begun and carried on, from 714 to 741, 
in State and Church. He left France reunited in one and placed at the head 
of Christian Europe. He died at the monastery of St. Denis, September 
i8th, 768, leaving his kingdom and his dynasty thus ready to the hands of 
his son. 

Pepin the Short divided his dominion between his two sons, Charles and 
Carloman, but an unexpected incident, the death of Carloman three years 
after, in 771, re-established unity. This Charles is known in history as 
Charlemagne. 

A summary of the wars of Charlemagne will here suffice. From 769 to 
813, in Germany and Western and Northern Europe, Charlemagne conducted 
thirty-one campaigns against the Saxons, Frisons, Bavarians, Avars, Slavons, 
and Danes ; in Italy, five against the Lombards ; in Spain, Corsica, and 
Sardinia, twelve against the Arabs ; two against the Greeks, and three in 
Gaul itself, against the Aquitanians and the Britons ; in all, fifty-three 
expeditions, among which those he undertook against the Saxons, the 
Lombards, and the Arabs were long and difficult wars. 
3 



34 FRANCE.— CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL. [312 

In 772, being left sole master of France after the death of his brother 
Carloman, he convoked at Worms the General Assembly and decided to 
invade Saxony. The principal events of the war may thus be summarily 
enumerated : Compulsory baptism of a large number of the Saxons M^ho 
had been driven beyond the Weser (774) ; diet of Paderborn ; all the chiefs 
send in their submission except Wittikind {^"J']']) ; victories of Badenfield and 
of Buckholtz (780) ; slaughter of forty-five hundred rebels at Verden (782) ; 
submission of Wittikind, who embraced Christianity (785). The conqueror 
could only finish his work of subjection by removing forcibly from the 
country ten thousand families, which he disseminated throughout Brabant 
and Switzerland (803). The new king of the Lombards, Didier, and the new 
pope, Adrian I., had entered upon a new war; and Didier was besieging 
Rome. In 773 Adrian invoked the aid of the king of the Franks. 
Charlemagne tried to obtain what the Pope demanded. When Didier 
refused, he at once convoked the general meetings of the Franks at Geneva 
in the autumn of 773, gained them over to the projected Italian expedition,, 
and then commenced the campaign with two armies. He finally took Pavia, 
where his father-in-law, Didier, had shut himself up, received the submission 
of all the Lombard dukes and counts, save one, and entered France with 
King Didier as prisoner, whom he banished to a monastery, 

*' Three years afterward, in 'j'jj, the Saracen chief Ibn-al-Arabi," says 
Eginhard, " came to Paderborn in Westphalia, to present himself before the 
king. He had arrived from Spain, together with other Saracens in his train,, 
to surrender to the king of the Franks himself and all the towns which the 
king of the Saracens had confided to his keeping. With the coming of the 
spring of the following year, 778, he obtained the full assent of his chief 
warriors and started on his march toward the Pyrenees. The expedition, 
however, begun under the most brilliant auspices, came to a melancholy 
conclusion, the rear guard of the Franks' army being cut to pieces in the 
passes of Roncesvalles on their return home. This disaster, and. the heroism 
of the warriors who perished there, became, in France the object of popular 
sympathy and the favorite topic for the exercise of the popular fancy. 

Although continually obliged to watch, and often still to fight, Charle- 
magne might well believe that he had nearly gained his end. He had 
everywhere greatly extended the frontiers of the Frankish dominions, and 
subjugated the populations comprised in his conquests. He had proved 
that his new frontiers would be vigorously defended against new invasions or 
dangerous neighbors. He had pursued the Huns and the Slavons to the 
confines of the Empire of the East, and the Saracens to the islands of Corsica 
and Sardinia. The center of the dominion was no longer in ancient Gaul ; he 
had transferred it to a point not far from the Rhine, in the midst and within 
reach of the Germanic populations, at the town of Aix-la-Chapelle, which he 
had founded, and which was his favorite residence ; but the principal parts of 
the Gallo-Frankish kingdom, Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy, were effectu- 
ally welded in one single mass. 



8i4j 



FRANCE.— THE CARLOVINGIANS. 



35 



In 799 he received, at Aix-la-Chapelle, news of serious disturbances at 
Rome, but he remained all the winter at Aix-la-Chapelle, spent the first 
months of the year 800 on affairs connected with Western France, then 
journeying toward Italy, he arrived on the 23d of November, 800, at the 
gates of Rome. Some days were spent in examining into the grievances 
which had been set down to the pope's account, and in receiving two monks 
arrived from Jerusalem to present to the king, with the patriarch's blessing, 
the keys of the Holy Sepulcher and Calvary, as well as the sacred standard. 
Lastly, on the 25th of December, 800, " the day of the Nativity of our Lord," 
says Eginhard, " the king came into the Basilica of the blessed St. Peter, 
apostle, to attend the mass. At the moment M-hen he knelt before the altar 
Pope Leo placed on his head a crown, and all the Roman people shouted, 
" Long life and victory to Charles Augustus, crowned by God, the great and 
pacific emperor of the Romans ! " 

Charlemagne died at Aix-la-Chapelle on Saturday, the 28th of January, 
814, in his seventy-first year. If we sum up his designs and his achievements, 
we find an admirably sound idea and a vain dream, a great success and a great 
failure. He took in hand the work of placing upon a solid foundation the 
Frankish Christian dominion by stopping, in the north and south, the flood of 
barbarians and Arabs, Paganism and Islamism. In that he succeeded : the 
inundations of Asiatic populations spent their force in vain against the Gallic 
frontier. Western and Christian Europe was placed, territorially, beyond 
reach of attacks from the foreigner and infidel. No sovereign, no human 
being, perhaps, ever rendered greater service to the civilization of the world. 

in. 




ROM the death of Charlemagne to the accession of 
Hugh Capet that — is, from 814 to 987 — thirteen kings sat 
upon the throne of France. What became of the solid 
territorial foundation of the kingdom of Christian France 

L through efificient repression of foreign invasion, and of 
the unity of that vast empire wherein Charlemagne had 
attempted and hoped to resuscitate the Roman empire ? 
The fate of those two facts is the very history of 
France under the Carlovingian dynasty ; it is the only portion 
of the events of that epoch which has exercised any great and 
lasting influence on the general history of France. 

Attempts at foreign invasion of France were renewed very 
often ; it were tedious to relate or even enumerate all the incur- 
sions of the Northmen, with their monotonous incidents. How- 
ever, there are three on which it may be worth while to dwell 
particularly, by reason of their grave historical consequences. 



36 FRANCE.— THE CARLOVINGIANS. [814 

In the middle and during the last half of the ninth century, a chief of the 
Northmen, named Hastenc of Hastings, appeared several times over on the 
coasts and in the rivers of France, with numerous vessels. When he appeared 
before Paris he consented to stop his cruising, to become a Christian, and to 
settle in the courtship of Chartres, which the king gave him as an hereditary 
possession, with all its appurtenances. 

In November, 885, under the reign of Charles the Fat, the Northmen 
resolved to unite their forces in order, at length, to obtain possession of Paris. 
The siege was prolonged through the summer, and when, in November, 886, 
Charles the Fat at last appeared before the city, with a large army, it was to 
purchase the retreat of the foe at the cost of a heavy ransom. Some months 
afterward Charles the Fat was deposed, and Arnulf, a natural son of Carlo- 
man, the brother of Louis III., was proclaimed emperor in his stead. At the 
same time Count Eudes, the gallant defender of Paris, was elected king at 
Compiegne and crowned by the Archbishop of Sens. Guy, duke of Spoleto, 
was declared king at Langres, but he soon abandoned the hopeless task. 

In the midst of this confusion the Northmen, though they kept at a dis- 
tance from Paris, pursued in Western France their cruising and plundering. 
In RoUo they had a chieftain far superior to his vagabond predecessors. 

When, in 898, Eudes was dead, and Charles the Simple, at hardly nineteen 
years of age, had been recognized sole king of France, the ascendency of Rollo 
became such that the necessity of treating with him was clea,r. In 91 1 Charles, 
by the advice of his councillors, sent to the chieftain of the Northmen, Franco, 
to offer him the cession of a considerable portion of Neustria and the hand of 
his young daughter Gisele, on condition that he became a Christian, and 
acknowledged himself the king's vassal. The treaty was made at St. Clair- 
sur-Epte ; henceforth the vagabond pirates had a country to cultivate and 
defend; the Northmen were becoming French. 

The invasions of the Saracens in the south of France were still continued 
from time to time ; but they did not threaten, as those of the Northmen did 
in the north, the security of the Gallo-Frankish monarchy, and the Gallo- 
Roman populations of the south were able to defend their national indepen- 
dence at the same time against the Saracens and the Franks. They did so 
successfully in the ninth and tenth centuries ; and the French monarchy, 
which was being founded between the Loire and the Rhine, had thus for 
some time a breach in it without ever suffering serious displacement. Sub- 
stantially France was founded. 

When Louis the Debonnair became emperor he began his reign by a 
reaction against the excesses of the preceding reign. He established at his 
court, for his sisters as well as his servants, austere regulations. In 817 Louis 
summoned the General Assembly and declared that he had resolved to share 
with his eldest son, Lothaire, the imperial throne. This son was, in fact, 
crowned emperor ; and his two brothers, Pepin and Louis, were crowned 
kings. After the death of Hermangarde, his lirst wife, Louis had married 
Judith of Bavaria. In 823 he had by her a son known as Charles the Bald. 



987] FRANCE.— THE CARLOVINGIANS. 37 

This son became his mother's ruHng, if not exclusive passion, and the source 
of his father's woes. In 829, during an assembly held at Worms, Louis set. at 
naught the solemn act whereby, in 817, he had shared his dominions among 
his three elder sons, and took away from two of them some of the territories 
he had assigned to them and gave them to the boy Charles for his share. 
Lothaire, Pepin and Louis thereupon revolted. Court intrigues were added 
to family differences ; for ten years scenes of disorder kept repeating them- 
selves again and again ; rivalries and secret plots began once more between the 
three victorious brothers and their partisans. Louis speedily convoked at 
Worms, in 839, once more and for the last time, a General Assembly, whereat, 
leaving his son Louis of Bavaria reduced to his kingdon in Eastern Europe, 
he divided the rest of his dominions into two nearly equal parts, separated by 
the course of the Meuse and the Rhone. Between these two parts he left the 
choice to Lothaire, who took the eastern portion, promising at the same time 
to guarantee the western portion to his younger brother Charles. Louis the 
Germanic protested against this partition, and took up arms to resist it. His 
father, the emperor, set himself in motion toward the Rhine, to reduce him 
to submission ; but on arriving close to Mayence he caught a violent fever, 
and died on the 20th of June, 840, at the castle of Ingelheim, on a little island 
in the river. 

Charles the Bald was to succeed, Lothaire retaining the imperial dignity; 
as a matter of fact me three sons equally aspired to the throne. Charles and 
Louis, having united for the purpose of resisting the ambition of their elder 
brother, defeated him in a terrible battle near the village of Fontenailles, 
six leagues from Auxerre. The Austrasian influence, till then triumphant in 
Gaul, perished there forever (841). The victorious princes subsequently con- 
firmed their union by what is generally called the oatJis of Straslmrg, a docu- 
ment regarded as the oldest specimen of the French language. Finally, in 
August, 843, the three brothers assembling with their umpires, at Verdun, 
they at last came to an agreement about the partition of the Frankish empire, 
save the three countries which it had been beforehand agreed to except. 
Thus disappeared in 843, by virtue of the treaty of Verdun, the second of 
Charlemagne's grand designs, the resuscitation of the Roman Empire. None 
of his successors was capable of exercising on the events of his times, by 
virtue of his brain and his own will, any notable influence. 

Twenty-nine years after the death of Charlemagne — that is, in 843 — when, 
by the treaty of Verdun, the sons of Louis the Debonnair had divided among 
them his dominions, the great empire split up into three distinct and inde- 
pendent kingdoms, the kingdoms of Italy, Germany, and France. The splits 
did not stop there. Forty-five years later, at the end of the ninth century, 
this empire had begotten seven instead of three kingdoms, those of France, of 
Navarre, of Provence, or Cis-juran Burgundy, of Trans-juran Burgundy, of 
Lorraine, of Allemannia, and of Italy. 

The same work was going on in France. About the end of the ninth 
century there were already twenty-nine provinces, or fragments of provinces, 



38 FRANCE.— THE CARLOVINGIANS. [ 814 

which had become petty States, the former governors of which under the 
names of dukes, counts, marquises, and viscounts, were pretty nearly real sover- 
eigns. Twenty-nine great fiefs, which have played a special part in French 
history, date back to this epoch. 

From the end of the ninth pass we to the end of the tenth century, to 
the epoch when the Capetians take the place of the Carlovingians. Instead 
of seven kingdoms to replace the empire of Charlemagne, there were then no 
more than four. Overtures had produced their effects among the great 
States ; but in the interior of the kingdom of France dismemberment had 
held on its course, and instead of the twenty-nine petty States or great fiefs 
observable at the end of the ninth century, we find, at the end of the tenth, 
fifty-five actually established. 

Now go back to any portion of French history, and stop where you will, 
and you will everywhere find the feudal system considered by the mass of 
the population a foe to be fought down at any price. At all times, whoever 
dealt it a blow has been popular in France. 

The reason for this fact is in the political character of feudalism ; it was 
a confederation of petty sovereigns, of petty despots, unequal among them- 
selves, and having, one toward another, certain duties and rights, but invested 
in their own domains, over their personal and direct subjects, with arbitrary 
and absolute power. But when we consider the masters, the owners of fiefs, 
and their relations one with another, we see liberties, rights and guarantees, 
which not only give protection and honor to those who enjoy them, but of 
which the tendency and effect are to open to the subject population an outlet 
toward a better future. It was, as it were, a people consisting of scattered 
citizens, of whom each, ever armed, accompanied by his following, or intrenched 
in his castle, kept watch himself over his own safety and his own rights, rely- 
ino" far more on his OAvn courage and his own renown than on the protection 
of the public authorities. 

The society of the future was not slow to sprout and grow in the midst of 
that feudal system so turbulent, so oppressive, so detested. No sooner was 
the feudal system in force than, with its victory scarcely secured, it was 
attacked in the lower grades by the mass of the people attempting to regain 
certain liberties, ownerships and rights, and in the highest by royalty laboring 
to recover its public character, to become once more the head of a nation. 
And from this moment the enfranchisement of the people makes way, in spite 
of the weakness, or rather nullity, of the regal power at the same epoch. 

From the end of the ninth to the end of the tenth century two families 
were, in French history, the representatives and instruments of the two sys-. 
tems thus confronted and conflicted at that epoch, the imperial, which was 
falling, and the feudal, which was rising. After the death of Charlemagne, 
his descendants, to the number of ten, from Louis the Debonnair to Louis the 
Sluggard, strove obstinately, but in vain, to maintain the unity of the empire 
and the unity of the central power. In four generations, on the other hand, 
the descendants of Robert the Strong climbed to the head of feudal France. 



987] FRANCE.— THE CARLOVINGIANS. 



39 



On the 29th or 30th of June, 987, Hugh Capet was crowned kuig by the 
grandees of Prankish Gaul assembled at Senlis, and the dynasty of the Cape- 
tians was founded under the double influence of German manners and feudal 
connexions. He was one of the greatest chieftains of feudal society, duke of 
the country which was already called France, and count of Paris, that city 
which Clovis had chosen as the center of his dominions. The Carlovingian, 
Charles of Lorraine, vainly attempted to assert his rights ; but, after some 
gleams of success, he died in 992, and his descendants fell, if not into obscur- 
ity, at least into political insignificance. In vain, again, did certain feudal 
lords, especially in Southern Prance, refuse for some time their adhesion to 
Hugh Capet. When he died, on the 24th of October, 996, the crown, which 
he hesitated, they say, to wear on his own head, passed without obstacle to 
his son Robert, and the course which was to be followed for eight centuries, 
under the government of his descendants, by civilization in France, began to 
develop itself. 

It is worth while noticing that, far from aiding the accession of the new 
dynasty, the court of Rome showed herself favorable to the old, and tried to 
save it without herself becoming too deeply compromised. Such was, from 
985 to 996, the attitude of Pope John XVI., at the crisis which placed Hugh 
Capet upon the throne. In spite of this policy on the part of the Papacy, the 
French Church took the initiative in the event, and supported the ncAv king. 

From 996 to 1 108 the first three successors of Hugh Capet, his son Rob- 
ert, his grandson Henry I., and his great-grandson Philip I., sat upon the 
throne of France; and during this long space of 112 years the kingdom of 
France had not, sooth to say, any history. Parcelled out betwen a multitude 
of princes, independent, isolated, and scarcely sovereigns in their own domin- 
ions, the France of the eleventh century existed in little more than name. 
One single event, the Crusade, united, toward the end of the century, those 
scattered sovereigns and peoples in one common idea and one combined 
action. 

In A.D. 1000, in consequence of the sense attached to certain words in 
the Sacred Books, many Christians expected the end of the world. Other 
facts, some more lamentable, began about this time to assume a place in 
French history. Piles of fagots were set up for the punishment of heretics ; 
some more salutary, for we find, about this epoch, the first efforts to establish 
in different parts of France what is called God's peace, God's truce. King 
Robert always showed himself favorable to this pacific work ; and he is the 
first among five kings who were distinguished themselves for kindness and 
anxiety for the popular welfare. Though not so pious or so good as Robert, 
his son, Henry I., and grandson, Philip I., were neither more energetic nor 
more glorious kings. 

During their long reigns (the former from 103 1 to 1060, and the 
latter from 1060 to I108) no important and well prosecuted design 
distinguished their government. Their public life was passed at one time 
in petty warfare, without decisive results, against such and such vassals ; 



40 FRANCE.— THE CARLOVINGIANS. [looo 

at another, in acts of capricious intervention in the quarrels of their 
vassals among themselves. Their home life was neither less irregular nor 
conducted with more wisdom and regard for the public interest. In 
the France of the middle ages, though practically crimes and disorders, 
moral and social evils abounded, yet men had in their souls and their 
imaginations loftier and purer instincts and desires ; their notions of virtue 
and their ideas of justice were very superior to the practice pursued 
around them and among themselves. To Christianity it was that the 
middle ages owed knighthood, that institution which, in the midst of 
anarchy and barbarism, gave a poetical and moral beauty to the period. 
It was feudal knighthood and Christianity together which produced the 
two great and glorious events of those times, the Norman conquest of 
England and the Crusades. 

From the time of Rollo's settlement in Normandy, the communica- 
tions of the Normans with England had become more and more frequent 
and important for the two countries. The conquest of England by 
William of Normandy properly belongs to English history, and we refer 
the reader thereto. Among the great events of European history none 
was for a longer time in preparation or more naturally brought about 
than the Crusades. Christianity, from her earliest days, had seen in 
Jerusalem her sacred cradle ; it had been, in past times, the home of her 
ancestors, the Jews, and the center of their history ; and, afterward, 
the scene of the life, death, and resurrection of her Divine Founder. 
Jerusalem became more and more the Holy City. To go to Jerusalem, 
to visit the Mount of Olives, Calvary, and the tomb of Jesus, was, in 
their most evil days and in the midst of their obscurity and their 
martyrdoms, a pious passion with the early Christians. Events, however, 
soon rendered the pilgrimage to Jerusalem difficult, and for some time 
impossible ; the Mussulmans, khalifs of Egypt or Persia, had taken 
Jerusalem ; and the Christians, native inhabitants or foreign visitors, 
continued to be ojjfh'essed, harassed, and humiliated there. The raising 
of the first crusade and the events attending its progress will be found 
fully discussed in the history of England. 

In the month of August, 1099, the Crusades, to judge by appear- 
ances, had attained its object. Jerusalem was in the hands of the Chris- 
tians, and they had set up in it a king, the most pious and most 
disinterested of the crusaders. Close to this ancient kingdom were grow- 
ing up likewise, in the two chief cities of Syria and Mesopotamia, 
Antioch and Edessa, two Christian principalities, in the possession of two 
crusader chiefs, Bohemond and Baldwin. A third Christian principality 
was on the point of getting founded at the foot of Libanus, at Trip- 
olis, for the advantage of another crusader, Bertrand, eldest son of Count 
Raymond of Toulouse. The conquest of Syria and Palestine seemed accom- 
plished, in the name of the faith, and by the armies of Christian Europe ; 
and the conquerors calculated so surely upon their fixture that, during 



1147] FRANCE.— THE CARLOVINGIANS. 



41 



his reign, short as it was (for he was elected king July 23d, 1099, ^"d 
died July 1 8th, 1 100, aged only forty years), Godfrey de Bouillon caused 
to be drawn up and published, under the title of Assizes of Jerusalem, 
a code of laws, which transferred to Asia the customs and traditions of 
the feudal system, just as they existed in France at the moment of his 
departure for the Holy Land. 

Forty-six years afterward, in 1145, the Mussulmans, under the leader- 
ship of Zanghi, sultan of Aleppo and of Mossoul, had retaken Edessa. 
Forty-two years after that, in 11 87, Saladin (Salah-el Eddyn), sultan of 
Egypt and Syria, had put an end to the Christian kingdom of Jeru- 
salem ; and only seven years later, in 1194, Richard Coeur de Lion, 
king of England, after the most heroic exploits in Palestine, on arriving 
in sight of Jerusalem, retreated in despair, covering his eyes with his 
shield, and saying that he was not worthy to look upon the city which 
he was not in a condition to conquer, A century had not yet rolled 
by since the triumph of the first crusaders, and the dominion they had 
acquired by conquest in the Holy Land had become, even in the eyes of 
their most valiant and most powerful successors, an impossibility. 

Nevertheless, repeated efforts and glory, and even victories, Avere not 
then, and were not to be still later, unknoAvn among the Christians in 
their struggle against the Mussulmans for the possession of the Holy 
Land. In the space of a hundred and seventy-one years, from the coro- 
nation of Godfrey de Bouillon as king of Jerusalem in 1099 to the death 
of St. Louis wearing the cross before Tunis in 1270, seven grand crusades 
were undertaken with the same design by the greatest sovereigns of Europe, 
The fourth and fifth of these have no connection with French history. 
During a reign of twenty-nine years Louis VL, called the Fat, son of 
Philip L, did not trouble himself about the East or the Crusades, at that 
time in all their fame and renown. 

When Louis VH, came to the throne, he for a time paid no attention to 
the Crusaders but busied himself with the internal affairs of his government 
until by way of expiating an act of cruelty, Louis joined with the Emperor 
Conrad HL in carrying on the second crusade, which was preached at 
Vezelay by the abbot of Clairvaux, the celebrated St, Bernard. 

Having each a strength, it is said, of 100,000 men, the two monarchs 
marched by Germany and the Lower Danube. The Emperor Conrad 
and the Germans first, and then King Louis and the French arrived at 
Constantinople in the course of the summer of 1147. Manuel Comnenus, 
grandson of Alexis Comnenus, was reigning there. Conrad was the first 
to cross into Asia Minor, and whether it was unskillfulness or treason, the 
guides with whom he had been supplied by Manuel Comnenus led him so 
badly that, on the 28th of October, 1 147, he was surprised and shockingly 
beaten by the Turks, near Iconium. King Louis and the majority of his 
knights continued their march across Asia Minor, and gained in Phrygia, at 
the passage of the river Meander, so brilliant a victory over the Turks that, 



42 FRANCE.— THE CARLOVINGIANS. [1148 

*' if such men," says the historian Nicetas, " abstained from taking Constan- 
tinople, one can not but admire tlieir moderation and forbearance." But 
the success was short, and, ere long, dearly paid for. On entering Pisidia, 
the French army split up into several divisions, which scattered and lost 
themselves in the mountains. The Turks attacked them, and before long 
there was nothing but disorder and carnage. But they continued their 
march pell-mell, king, barons, knights, soldiers, and pilgrims, uncertain 
day or night what would become of them on the morrow. At last they 
arrived in Pamphilia at Satalia, a little port on the Mediterranean. 
Here Louis embarked with his queen and principal kinghts, and toward 
the end of March, 1148, arrived at Antioch, having lost more than three- 
quarters of his army. 

On approaching Jerusalem, in the month of April, 1148, Louis VH. 
saw coming to meet him King Baldwin UL, and the patriarch and the 
people singing, "Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord ! " 
At the same time arrived from Constantinople the Emperor Conrad, ^ 
almost alone and in the guise of a simple pilgrim. All the remnant of 
the crusaders, French and German, hurried to join them. They decided 
upon the siege of Damascus. At the first attack, the ardour of the 
assailants and the brilliant personal prowess of their chiefs, of the 
Emperor Conrad among others, struck surprise and consternation into 
the besieged ; but the Turks rallied and repulsed the crusaders, who 
finally raised the siege and returned to Jerusalem. The Emperor Conrad 
in disgust set out at once for Germany. Louis prolonged his stay for 
more than a year without any results. Urged at length by his minister 
Suger he embarked at St. Jean d'Acre in July, 1149, and reached France 
in October. Suger, the abbot of St. Denis, had been opposed to the 
crusade, and denounced it with a freedom unique for his times ; but after- 
ward, in the king's absence, had administered the government with tact, 
firmness and disinterestedness for his sovereign and established order over 
all France. 

Almost at the very moment when Suger was dying, a French council, 
assembled at Beaugency, was annulling, on the ground of prohibited 
consanguinity, and with the tacit consent of the two persons most concerned, 
the marriage of Louis VH. and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Some months 
afterward, at Whitsuntide in the same year, Henry Plantagenet, duke of 
Normandy and count of Anjou, espoused Eleanor, thus adding to his already 
great possessions Poitou and Aquitaine, and becoming, in France, a vassal 
more powerful than the king his suzerain. Twenty months later, in 1154, at 
the death of King Stephen, Henry Plantagenet became king of England. 

Little more than a year after Suger, on the 20th of April, 11 53, St. 
Bernard died also. The two great men, of whom one had excited and the 
other opposed the second crusade, disappeared together from the theater of 
the world. The crusade had completely failed. After a lapse of scarce forty 
years a third crusade began. 



ii9o] FRANCE.— THE CARLOVINGIANS. 43 

In the course of the year 1 187, Europe suddenly heard tale upon tale 
about the repeated disasters of the Christians in Asia. On the 3d and 4th of 
July, near Tiberias, a Christian army was surrounded by the Saracens, and 
also, ere long, by the fire which Saladin had ordered to be set to the dry grass 
which covered the plain. Four days after, on the 8th of July, 1187, Saladin 
took possession of St. Jean d'Acre, and, on the 4th of September following-, 
of Ascalon. Finally, on the i8th of September, he laid siege to Jerusalem, 
wherein refuge had been sought by a multitude of Christian families, driven 
from their homes by the ravages of the infidels throughout Palestine ; and 
the Holy City contained at this time, it is said, nearly one hundred thousand 
Christians. The capitulation soon followed, and all Christians, however, with 
the exception of Greeks and Syrians, had orders to leave Jerusalem within 
four days. 

After the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin, the Christians of the East, in 
their distress, sent to the West their most eloquent prelate and gravest 
historian, William, archbishop of Tyre. At a parliament assembled at Gisors, 
on the 2ist of January, 1188, and at a diet convoked at Mayence on the 27th 
of March following, he so powerfully affected the knighthood of France, 
England, and Germany, that the three sovereigns of these three States, Philip 
Augustus, Richard Coeur de Lion, and Frederick Barbarossa, engaged with 
acclamation in a new crusade. The eldest, Frederick Baj-barossa, was first 
ready to plunge among the perils of the crusade. Starting from Ratisbonne 
about Christmas, 1189, with an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men. 
he traversed the Greek empire and Asia Minor, defeated the Sultan of 
Iconium, passed the first defiles of Taurus, and seemed to be approaching the 
object of his voyage, when, on the loth of June, 1190, having arrived at the 
borders of the Selef, a small river which throws itself into the Mediterranean 
close to Seleucia, he determined to cross it by fording, was seized Avith a chill, 
and, according to some, drowned before his people's eyes, but, according to 
others, carried dying to Seleucia, where he expired. His young son Conrad, 
duke of Suabia, was not equal to taking the command of such an army ; and 
it broke up. 

On the 24th of June, 1190, Philip Augustus went and took the oriflamme 
at St. Denis, on his way to Vezelai, where he had appointed to meet Richard, 
and whence the two kings, in fact, set out, on the 4th of July, to embark with 
their troops, Philip at Genoa and Richard at Marseilles. The exploits of 
Philip and Richard are given in the History of England. The third crusade 
ended in complete failure. The three armies, at the moment of departure 
from Europe, amounted to between five hundred thousand and six hundred 
thousand men, of whom scarcely one hundred thousand ever returned, and 
the only result of the third crusade was to leave as head over all the most 
beautiful provinces of Mussulman Asia and Africa, Saladin, the most 
illustrious and most able chieftain, in war and politics, that Islamry had 
produced since Mahomet. 



44 FRANCE.— THE CARLOVINGIANS. [1200 

From the end of the twefth to the middle of the thirteenth century it is 
usual to count three crusades, but with two of them we have no dealing. 

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, while the enterprises which 
were still called crusades were becoming more and more degenerate in 
character and potency, there was born in France, on the 25th of April, 121 5, 
not merely the prince, but the man who was to be the most worthy 
representative and the most devoted slave of that religious and moral passion 
which had inspired the crusades. Louis IX., though born to the purple, a 
powerful king, a valiant warrior, a splendid knight, and an object of reverence 
to all those who at a distance observed his life, and of affection to all those 
who approached his person, was neither biassed nor intoxicated by any such 
human glories and delights ; he had an ambition to be, and was, to the 
measure of his age, a true Christian. This is the peculiar and original 
characteristic of St. Louis, and a fact rare and probably unique in the history 
of kings. 

In the first years of his government, when he had reached his majority, 
there was nothing to show that the idea of the crusade occupied Louis IX. 's 
mind; and it was only in 1239, when he was now four and twenty, that it 
showed itself vividly in him. 

Five years afterward, at the close of 1244, Louis fell seriously ill at 
Pontoise, and, having recovered, took the cross in consequence of a vow he 
had made to that effect. At last, in January, 1248, he took leave of his 
mother, Queen Blanche, whom he left a regent during his absence with fullest 
power. He took his wife. Queen Marguerite, of Provence, with him. In the 
early part of August he had assembled at Aigues-Mortes a fleet of thirty- 
eight vessels and a number of transports, which he had hired of the republic 
of Genoa to convey the troops and personal retinue of the king to the East ; 
he sent away nearly ten thousand bowmen, Genoese, Venetian, Pisan, and 
even French, whom he had at first engaged, and of whom, after inspection, 
he desired nothing further. The sixth crusade was the personal achievement 
of St. Louis, not the offspring of a popular movement, and he carried it out 
with a picked army. 

The Isle of Cyprus was the trysting-place appointed for all the forces of 
the expedition. Louis arrived there on the 12th of September, 1248, and 
reckoned upon remaining there only a few days ; for it was Egypt that he was 
in a hurry to reach. The French, however, left the island only in May, 1249, 
and, in spite of violent gales of wind, which dispersed a large number of 
vessels, they arrived on the 4th of June before Damietta, which was taken 
without the least difficulty. The Mussulmans had found time to recover 
from their first fright and to organize, at all points, a vigorous resistance. 
On the 8th of February, 1250, a battle took place twenty leagues from 
Damietta, at Mansourah {the city of victory), on the right bank of the Nile. 
The king's brother, Robert, count of Artois, marched with the vanguard, and 
obtained an early success. Elated by this result, he rushed forward into the 
town, where he found the Mussulmans numerous and perfectly rallied. In a 



GAY^S CHRON 

SHOWING A CONNECTED HISTORY OF THE WORLD 



GAUL (Germany and France). 

656— CLOVIS II. king of France. 

687— THIERY defeated by PEPIN. 

681— MEBROUIN, the last of the Merovingian kings, 

714 -CHARLES MARTEL duke of France. 

7 3 jj— Battle of Poitiers; Franks gain victory over 
Saracens. 

739 -Provence conquered by CHARLES MARTEL. 

747— CARLOMaN abdicates the throne of France. 

768— CHARLEMAGNE and CARLOMAN govern 
France and Germany. 

771— CHARLEMAGNE sole ruler. 

774— Italy annexed after defeating the Lombards. 

778— Beginning of the age of chivalry ; CHARLE- 
MAGNE invades Spain. 

78 5 -Saxons subdued ; embrace Christianity. 

79y -CHARLEMAGNE subdues Avas. 

800— CHARLEMAGNE crowned at Rome emperor of 
the West. 



ENGLAND. 

603— Bernieia invaded by the Scots; invaders ex- 
pelled. 

642— Mercians defeat Bernicians. 

678— TJae Uf,i ,dng of the Britons. 

685— Britons driven into Wales and Cornwall by 
the Saxons. 

687 — Wessexand Sussex united. 

694- Kent ravaged by West Saxons. 

755— Insurrection in Mercia. 

756— Bavina annexed to the see of Rome by PEPIN. 

787 — Danes land in England. 



SCOTLAND. 



685— Scots under some kind of subjection to the king 
of Northumbria ; recover independence on the 
defeat and death of King EGFRID in battle 
vsrith the Picts at Nechtansmere. 



IRELAND. 



624— DONALD II. began to reign. 

640— CONAL and KILLACT. 

656— DERMID and BLATHMAC. 

663— SHAN ASAGH. 

669— KINFALA. 

673— FINACTA. 

693— LOINGSECT. 

701— COMGAL. 

708— FEARGHUL. 

718— Battle of Almhaim ; king killed. 

718-733-Tlireekings; Hugh V. 

739— DONALD I. 

759— NEAL FEARSAGH. 

776-797— DONOGH I. 

797— HUGH VI. 




OTHER NATIONS. 

600— Italy overrun by Sclavonians. 

611— Persian conquest in Syria, Egypt and Asia Mi- 
nor ; Rome besieged by thein. 

612 — Persecution of Jews in Spain. 

614— Jerusalem captured by Persians. 

622— Mlediua entered by MOHAMMED ; the Hegira. 

630— MOHAMMED acknowledged as prophet. 

632 — He dies ; Mohammedanism spreads to Persia. 

638— Saracens conquer Syria. 

640— Alexandrian library burned. 

6.53 — Tlie Saracens take Rhodes. [Italy. 

666-CONSTANS II. defeated by the Lombards m 

668 - Saracens besiege Constantmople. 

672 -Saracens driven out of Spain. 

678— Bulgaria founded in Northern Greece. 

697— ANAFESTO first doge of Venice. [Bulgarians. 

711 — Arabs invade Spain ; Eastern Empire ravaged by 

712 — Aralts establish an empire in Spain. 

716 — Ootltic monarchy founded in Greece. 

720— Saracens defeated at Constantinople- 

730— Emperor LEO excommunicated by Pope 
GREGORY II., who died 731. 

791 — ALFONSE, the Chaste, reigns in Spain ; independ- 
ence of Christians established. 



801—1001. 

GERMANY. 



843 — Tlie treaty of Verdun ; the sons oi Louis divide 

the empire ; Germany a separate kingdom. 
934— HENRY I. defeats the Danes. 
951— OTHO invades Italy. 

962— OTHO the Great emperor ; union with Italy. 
982— OTHO III. defeated by Saracens and Greeks. 
996— OTHO III. makes German empire elective. 



FRANCE. 

830 — LOUIS, the Debonnair, imprisoned in France. 
843 — A separate kingdom. 
848— Independence of Brittany. 
851- Northmen umive an incursion into France. 
858— I4-ingdom of Navarre established. 
87.5 — CH/iKLES the Bald becomes emperor. 
888— Paris attacked by Northmen. 
911— Deatlxof LOUIS the Child; extinction of the 
Carlovingian dynasty. [Normandy. 

912— ROLLO, the Northman, created Robert, duke of 
939— HUGH CAPET, of Paris, subdued by Louis IV. 
978— OTHO II. invades France. 



823- 
825 
827- 
871- 
878- 
890- 

901 
920 
937 
979- 



836- 



- Essex annexed to Wessex. 
Kent and Northumbria annexed to Wessex. 
-EGBERT becomes king of all England. 
-ALFRED defeated by the Danes at Merton. 
-ALFRED the Great driven out of England. 
-ALFRED the Great promulgates a code and 

fri'inds the University of Oxford. 
-Deatll of ALFRED. 
-Mercia annexed to Wessex by Edward. 
-A f HiiLSTANE becomes chief king. 
-EDWARD the Martyr murdered. 



-KENNETH, son of Alpine, descendant of FER- 
GUS and AIDEN, is king ; in Northern Britain 
Scots acquire predominance by a revolution. 
881 — Danes overrun Scotland ; Picts and Scots grad- 
ually coalesce ^^SS'S^.^S^^m^W^^mms^--. 



802-830— Kepeated raids of the Danes and Scandi- 
navians for plunder. 

819— CORNORII. 

833 — Dublin taken by Danes ; continual war. 

845— MALaCHY I. 860-HUGHVII. 

877-Ff.A\'N of Shannon. 883— NEAL III. 

893— Dublin recovered by the I visa. 

912— Invasion of the Northmen. 

913— Dublin taken by them. 

916— DONOGH, son of FLANN SINNA ; repeated 
repulses of the Danes. 

942— CONGAL, who was killed by the Danes in 954 ; 
he was succeeded by DONNEL O'NEIL, and 
he by MALACHY II. 

948— Danes converted to Christianity. [AN. 

990-1001— War between MALACHY II. and BRI- 



807 — War between Peloponnesians and slaves. 

843-4 Spain ravaged by the Northmen. 

846— Rome sacked by the Saracens. 

850— RUSSIC establishes the Russian monarchy. 

865 -Constantinople attacked by Russians. 

867— Bassillian i..> nasty established at Constantino- 
ple. 

869— <EcumenIcal council at Constantinople (Latin 
. t-ir-h). 

879- *Ecumenical council of Greek Church. 

890— Eastern empire conquers Rome. 

896— Kome captured by Germans. 



Designed for Gay's Standard Historirs. by WiljUAM GI 



GICAL CHARTS, 

:ENT and modern, from 2800 B.C. to 1884: A.D. 



1002—1099. 

Central Period of 

)2-1123 — Q,uarrel between the pope and emperor 

concerning investiture of bishops. 
1:2— HENRY I. conquers Bohemia. 
rS— HENRY IV. disputes the pope's title. 
rS— HENRY humbled by the pope. 
ITf—Mle submits and does penance at Canossa. 
J 1— Italy invaded by HENRY IV. [made pope. 

J4— Pope deposed ; Rome captured and Clement III. 
>0— ilENRY IV, takes Mantua. 



J8 — War between France and England. 



1100-1200. 

Medley AL History. 

1 147— CONR.AD III. joins the crusades; army destro}\v:. 
1154-1177— Wars between Italic republics auJ 

FREDERICK I. 
11 62 -Milan dcstn.vcd by FREDERICK I. 
1167— FREDERICK 'I. takes Rome; Italian league. 
1176— FREDERICK I. (.Barbarosa) defeated by the 

Lombard leagrue. 
1 190- Order of Teutonic Knights established ; death of 

K.xRBAROSA. 



1 1 8 .» - Amiens and Valois annexed to France. 

1 1 80 — Kngland, France and Germany unite in third 

crusade ; siege of Acre. 
1191 — Artois annexed to France. 



02 — Danes massacred in Englcnd. 

03— ETHELRED flees to Normandy. 

13— England conquered by SWEYN. 

16— England divided between CAISfUTE and ED- 
MUND IRONSIDES. 

17— CANUTE, the Dane, sole king. 

42— The Sa-\on dynasty restored. 

51— GODFREY of Kent rebels. 

66— WILLIAM of Normandy conquers England ; bat- 
tle of Hastings. 

70 — Feudal system introduced. 

86 — Census completed ; Doomsday book. 



33— ATHELSTANE of England ravages Scotland ; 

battle of Brunan-burh ; CONSTANTINE, the 

king, escapes • his son is killed. 
68— CONSTANTINE dies; a portion of the Cambrian 

kingdom restored to MALCOLM by EDWARD 

of England. 
39— MACBETH murders DUNCAN I. 
i41— Danes driven out. 

lOl— BRIATJ deposes MALACHY U. 

1 10— Peace with the Danes. 

il2 — Another invasion of the Northmen. 

il3 — Defeat of the Northmen ; Danish power broken. 

lis — War of the succession, which lasted till the time 

of STRONGBOW. There were in this time 

seven crownless kings. 
195— Pestilence in Ireland. 



>07— The Russians receive tribute from Constantino- 
ple. 
)88— VLADIMIR of Russia embraces Christianity. 
)1 5— Russia divided at death of VLADIMIR. 
)19 -Moors enter Spain. 
)26— Kingdom of Castile founded. 
)35 — K-Ingdom of Aragon founded. 
)37— IjCon a-id Castile united. 

)40— Eastern Empire regains Sicily and loses Servia. 
>43— Uussians defeated at Constantinople. 
[)6 5 -Turks capture Rome. 
[)9.5 — Portugal becomes a separate p)ower. 
996— The first crusade begins. 
[)99-GODFREY DE BOUILLON takes Jerusalem. 



1100— HENRY I. grants a charier restoring Saxon laws. 

1106— HENRY defeats ROBERT .ind gains Normandy. 

1135— Civil war between STEPHEN and Empress 
MAUDE, HENRY'S daughter. 

1147 — M.*. UDE defeated and goes to France. 

1154— HENRY 11. the first Phmtagenet. 

1 1 62— Constitutions of Clarendon. 

1170— THO;viA.S-A-BECKET murdered. 

1 1 72— Ireland conquered. 

1177 — For the administration of justice, England divid- 
ed in six circuits, 

1181- Digest of English laws. 

1189— Massacre of Jews in London. 

1191— RICHARD loins the crusades. 

1194— RICHARD Cceur de Lion imprisoned in Ger- 
many ; ransomed for three hundred thousand 
pounds. 



1101— North of Ireland devastated by MORTOUGH. 

1114— MORTOUGH resigns. 

1118— RORY O'COXXOkdied. 

1141— Massac i-ebv DERMOD MAC DURROUGH. 

1166— DERMOIJ ill England to seek aid. 

1169— English! and in Ireland ; marriage of STRONG- 
BOW with EVA. 

1171— HENRY of England lands in Ireland. 

1172— Ireland conquered by tiie English. 

1175— The decree of the council of St. Michael ; Irish, 
king pays tribute to England. 



1 104— Capture of Acre. 

1 1 06— Mlla a free republic. 

1 122— Trc^ity <>{ Worms between emperor and pope. 

1 1 39— Porlia'gal becomes a kingdom. 

1 143 — Moors r.oelled in Spain. 

1146-8— Second crusade; France and Germany de- 
feated ; Greece plundered. 

1 1 59— "IVars of Guelphs and Ghibellines. 

1 1 72-Grcat conquests by SALADIN. 

1183— Peace of Constance; free cities established in 
Italv. 

1187— Jerusalem taken by SALADIN. 

1191— Kingdom of Cyprus founded ; Acre capture:' ; 
Jerusalem open to pilgrims. 



CHART IV. 



FROM 600 TO 1200 AD. 



Gri. 



AY^S CHRONOLOGICAL CHARTS, 

SHOWING A COInNECTED HISTORY OF THE WORLD,. ANflENT AND MODERN, FROM 2800 B.C. TO 1884 A.D. 



600-800. 

GAUL (Germany and France). 



(;.',(■. 

«S7 
«81 

714 

7:i'Z 

747 

70S 

771 
771 

7/H 

78.-, 
71)1) 
800 



rr,OVIS II. kin»,' of Prance. 
-TIIII'.Ky defeated by I'liPIN 

MJ'.liHOUIN, tlie )a.stof the jMcrovingian kings, 
,•, .■,;r,M.i;.ird, 
-CHAKI.I-.'. ;.] ARTEL duke of France, 

Itiilll)' "( l'"itier»; Franks gain victory over 

,;: ,„,. rrrl byCHAKI.KS MARTEL. 

, ,i/ii. ,1, , ifie throne of France. 
,1 \<, ,l', .ill. I CARLO.MA.N govern 



I'rovcii 

CAKI.'i .1 

CMAKI.:. 

I'; 



ni M<I.I',MA(,NK '.ole ruler. , , . , 

ll„lv ,-x.<l .idrr defeating the Lombards. 

ii.'^Lulufi'l '^'- .'f-"^ "f chivalry ; CHARLE- 

,vlA(/.Nl', li.v,idr-s S|):illi. 
NiixoiiN MilKlin-.l ; ii.il.r.K (■ ( liristianity. 
( ||AKf.l'.MA(,,\'l'. suliihi.s Avas. 
(■|IARfJ'-.VlA(>Nli crowned at Rome emperor of 

the West. 



ENGLAND. 



6011 B<'i-iilclii iiiv.idcd l)y the Scots; invaders ex- 



O'l'i 

078 

onr, 

«8 7 
«))'! 

' 7 



■IrltoiiN 



1 (Kfeat Hernicians. 

II'' of tlie Hritons. 

In veil into Wales and Cornwall by 



H'cMHCV iiid Sussex united. 

Kciil i,iv;i;;iil by West Saxons. 

liiNiii-r<'<-ti<>il In Mcrcia. 

Kii villi! annexed to the .see of Rome by PEPIN. 

UaiiUN land in EnKland. 



,,1 78 

IJCOTLAND. 



*{ "-CSS tivnlH iiiulir some kind of subjection to the king 
■ '' of Nortliumbria ; recover independence on the 

; defeat ami death of King EflKRIU in battle 

with the Picts at Ncclitansmcre. 



IRELAND. 

Gil DONAl.l) 11. began foreign. 

(MO CONAl.aml KII.I.ACT. 

«r,« DI'.UMII) mid lU.ATHMAC. 

mi.t SIIANASACai. 

(i(il> KINl'Al.A. 

HT.t 1'1NA( TA. 

4{)i:t I.(I1N(;SECT. 

701 COMCAI.. 

708 l'l',AR(;iIUL. 

7 I 8 ItiiKlo of Ahnhaim ; king killed. 

71S 7;t:i TlirookiiiKS; Hugh V. 

7;i1» DDNAl.D I. 

751) NICAI, I'-I'-.AKSAC.H. 

770 71)7 l>ON()(;il 1. 

707 iiu(;h VI. 



0TH1':R NATIONS. 



000- Italy overrun by Selavonians. 
01 1 -Poriilan eomincst in Syria, Egypt i»nd Asia Mi- 
nor ; Rome lusieged by lliem. 
Cia-Porxofiillou of Jews in Spain. 
«ll 



ii-.ii 
, oas 

f 6 10 
GOO 

oos 



Jfi-llwaloiii iipuired by Persians. 

ITItMliiiii <ni< rr,l by MOIl AMMEO ; the Hcgir 



MOIl AMMIU) .u-knowledged .is prophet, 
lie ilics ; Moh.inuuedanism spreads to Persia. 
Si«ra<'<'iis I'onciiier Syria. 
.\l<>\aii<lriaii library burned, 
■rho S.ii.ic ens i.ike Rhodes. [Italy. 

CCINSIANS II. ilefeated by the Lombards in 
Sarari'iiN besiege Constantinople. 
07'i .SararoiiM driven out of Spain. 
078 Hiili^uriu founded in Northern Greece. 
,61)7 .\NAFESrt) lirst doge of Venice. [Bulgarians. 
,711 —A I'libN invade Spain ; Eastern Empire ravaged by 
712— Ai'ultM est.iblish an empire in Spam. 
716— (aotliic monur^'hy founded in Greece. 
720-Siii-«<-<-iiJt defeated at Constantinople- 
7S0— Kiiip«T«)r LEO excommunicated by Pope 

GREGORY II., who died 731. 
T91— ALKONSE, the Chaste, reigns in Spain ; independ- 
ence of Christians established. 



801-1001. 

GERMANY. 



843— The treaty of Verdun ; the sons oi Louis divide 

the empire; Germany a separate kingdom. 
934— HENRY 1. defeats the Danes. 
9.51— OTHO invades Italy. 

002 O'i HO the Great emperor ; union with Italy. 
'.)H-Z OTHO III. defeated by Saracens and Greeks. 
yy« (JTHO III. makes German empire elective. 



FRANCE. 



830-LOUIS, the Debonnair, imprisoned in France. 
843 -A separate kingdom. 
848- Iiitlepeiideiice of Brittany. 
851 N<»rtnincn maKe an incursion into France. 
85S ItiiiK<loin of Navarre established. 
87.i_CH'iKLES the B;ild becomes emperor. 
888— Paris attacked by Northmen. 
911 — Death of LOUIS the Child; extinction of the 
Carlovingian dynasty. [Normandy. 

912_ROLLO, the Northman, created Robert, duke of 
939— HUGH CAPET, of Paris, subdued by Louis IV. 
978 -OTHO II. invades France. 



823 Khkcx annexed to Wessex. 

82/; Koilt and Northumbria annexed to Wessex. 

827 I'.KiiiCRT becomes king of all England. 

871 - ALFRED defeated by the Danes at Merton. 

878 -AI-P'RIiD the Great driven out of England. 

890 ALl'RED the (ireat promulgates a code and 

foniuis the University of Oxford. 
901 Doatli of ALFRED. 
920 JMerela annexed to Wessex by Edward. 
937 -A I'HcLSTANE becomes chief king. 
979— EDWARD the Martyr murdered. 



836-KENNETH, son of Alpine, descendant of FER- 
GUS and .MDEN, is king ; in Northern Britain 
Scots acquire predominance by a revolution. 

881— Danes overrun Scotland ; Picts and Scots grad- 
ually coalesce into one people. 



802 830— Kcpcatod raids of the Danes and Scandi- 
navians for plunder. 

819-rORNOR II. 

833 Dublin taken by Danes; continual war. 

8 1.-. MA1..u:HY I. 860-HUGHVII. 

877 I'l ^v\„fShaiinon. 883-NEAL III. 

81)3 Dublin recovered by the Iw^ii. 

912- Iiivawlon of the Northmen. 

913 Dublin taken by them. 

916-Ul)NOGH, son of FLANN SINNA ; repeated 
repulses of the Danes. 

942— CONGAL, who was killed by the Danes in 954 ; 
he was succeeded by DONNEL O'NEIL.and 
heby MALACHY II. 

948— Danes converted to Christianity. [AN. 

990-1001— War between MALACHY II. and BRI- 



807— War between Peloponnesians and slaves. 

843-4 Kpaln ravaged by the Northmen. 

8 16 Rome sacked by the Saracens. 

8.iO- RUSSIC est,ablishes the Russian monarchy. 

86.> ('oiixtnntiliople attacked by Russians. 

807— UaNsillian i .. .usty established at Constantino- 

869— <E<-iimenlcal council at Constantinople (Latin 

. iMr hi. 
879- <Feiinienical council of Greek Church. 
890— Kastern empire conquers Rome. 
896— Rome captured by Germans. 



1002—1099. 

Centr.\l Period of 

1002-1123— Quarrel between the pope and emperor 

concerning investiture of bishops. 
1042— HENRY I. conquers Bohemia. 
1073— HENRY IV. disputes the pope's title. 
1075— HENRY humbled by the pope. 
1077— He submits and does penance at Canossa. 
108 1— Italy invaded by HENRY IV. [made pope. 

1084— Pope deposed ; Rome captured and Clement III. 
1090— HENRY IV, takes Mantua. 



1098 — War between France and England. 



1002 — Danes m.-issacred in Engknc. 

1003— K THKLRED flees to Norm.indy. 

1013-JE:n<;lan<l conquered by SWEYN. 

1016— I^n-rland divided between CANUTE and ED- 
MUND IRONSIDES. 

1017— CANUTE, the Dane, sole king. 

1042— Xlie Saxon dynasty restored. 

1051— GODFREY of Kent rebels. 

1066 — WILLIAM of Normandy conquers England ; bat- 
tle of Hastings. 

1070— Feudal system introduced. 

1086— Census completed ; Doomsday book. 

933— ATHELSTANE of England rav.iges Scotland ; 
battle of Brunan-burh; CON.STANTINE, the 
king, escapes ■ his son is killed. 
953— CONSTANTINE dies -a portion of the Cambri.in 
kingdom restored to M.ALCOLM by EDWARD 
of England. 
1039— MACBETH murders DUNCAN I. 
1041— Danes driven out. 

1001— BRIAN deposes MALACHY n. 

1010— Peaee with the Danes. 

lOl 2— Another invasion of the Northmen. 

1013 — Defeat of the Northmen ; Danish power broken. 

1018— AVar of the succession, which lasted till the time 

of STRONGBOW. There were in this time 

seven cro%vnlcss kings. 
1095— Pestilence in Ireland. 



907— The Russians receive tribute from Constantino- 
ple. 

9S8— VLADIMIR of Russia embmces Christianity. 
1015— Russia divided at death of VLADIMIR. 
1019- moors f-nter Spain. 
1020— KiiiKdom of Castile founded. 
1035 — Kingdom of ..\ragon founded. 
1037— I^eoii :i-.d Castile united. 

10 lO— Eastern Empire regains Sicilv and loses Servia. 
10.(3— RuMSlans defeated at Constantinople. 
1065- Turks capture Rome. 
109.5— Portugal becomes a separate power. 
1096— 'JTlio first crusade begins. 
1099— GODFREY DE BOUILLON takes Jerusalem. 




1100 1200. 

Medi.iival History. 

1 147-CONRAD 111. joins the crus-idesv 

1154-1177 -W^ars between Italic rep'ublics "ai.d 

I-KKDERICK I. 
1162 -Milan destroyed bv FREDERICK I. 
1 107 -FREDERICK 1. takes Rome; Italian league. 
H70-FREDERICK 1. (.Barb;iros.il defeated by the 

Lombard league. 
1190 Order of Teutonic Knights established ; death of 

ii.vRBAROSA 



1185 - .\ nitons and Valois annexed to France. 

1189 Klii^laud, France and tUrmuny unite in third 

crusade ; siege of Acre. 
1191— Artol8anne.\ed to France. 



1 100- HENRY I. grants a charier restoring Saxon laws. 
1 1 OO - HENRY defeats ROHER T and gains Normandy. 
1135 t'lvll war between SIKrilKN and Empress 

MAUDE, HENRY'S davmlurr. 
1 147-MAUnE (lefeated and goes to France. 
1154-HK\UV 11. the lirst I'lantagenet. 
1 102 <'<>iiKtllullonNof Clarendon. 
1 1 70 1 I lO.M \,s-A-liKCKET murdered. 

I 172 Brclaitd conquered. 

1 177 — l''or ilie adininistration of justice, Engl.ind divid- 
id in si\ cireiiils. 

I I 8 1 - DltfONt oi iMiKlish laws. 

1 189- Massaerc of jews in London. 

1191-RlLHAK I) join's the crusades. 

1194— RICHARD Ca-ur dc Lion imprisoned in Ger- 
many ; ransomed for three hundred Ihousand 
pounds. 



1101- North of Ireland devast.iled by MORTOUGH. 

1114 -MORl'OUC.Il resigns. 

1 I 18 -RORY O'fOXNOR died. 

1141 massacre I. V DICRMODMAC DURROUGH. 

1100 DKKMOI) III ICngland to seek aid. 

1109-l!:nu:llHlil nul ill Ireland ; marriage of STRONG- 

IKIW with EVA. 
1171 I MCN RY of ICngland lands in Ireland. 
1 1 72 Ireland cominered by the English. 
1175-Tlie decree of the council of Si. Mieh.iel ; Irish. 

king pays tribute to England. 



1 1 01-Capturc of Acre. 

1 lOO-mila a free republic. 

1 1 22 Tre'ity of Worms between emperor and pope. 

1 1 39 - Porlii'^al becomes a kingdom. 

1 143- moiMN i-.iielled in Spain. 

1146-8 Srroiid crusade; France and Germany de- 

fe:ii'-(i ; (irecce plundered. 
1 159-AVars of Guelplis and Ghibcllincs. 
1 172 -Great conquests by SALADIN. 
1183— Peaecof Constance; free cities cs'abljshed in 

Italv. 
1187— Jerusalem t.ikcn by SALADIN. 
1191— Kin^fdom of Cyprus founded ; Acre capture:! ; 

Jerusalem open to pilgrims. 



CHART IV. 



FROM 600 TO 1200 AD. 



Designed for Gay's Standard Historirs. by WTLUAM GAY & Co., 256 Chapel St., Kew Haven. Conn. COPYEIGHT 1883. 



AP\>- 



f 



:•;. % 



1263] FRANCE.— THE CARLOVINGIANS. 45 

few moments the count of Artois fell pierced with wounds, and more than 
three hundred knights of his train, the same number of English, together 
with their leader, William Longsword, and two hundred and eighty Templars, 
paid with their lives for the senseless ardor of the French prince. The 
French rallied and drove off their foes. The battle-field was left that day to 
the crusaders ; but they were not allowed to occupy it as conquerors, for 
three days afterward, on the nth of February, 1250, the camp of St. Louis 
was assailed by clouds of Saracens. An attempt was made by the French 
king to negotiate with the enemy, but to no purpose, and on the 5th of April, 
1250, the crusaders decided to retreat. But during this retreat, says Joinville, 
" there took place a great mishap. A traitor of a sergeant, whose name was 
Marcel, began calling to our people, ' Sir knights, surrender, for such is the 
king's command : cause not the king's death.' All thought that it was the 
king's command ; and they gave up their swords to the Saracens." Being 
forthwith declared prisoners, the king and all the rear guard were removed to 
Mansourah, the king by boat and his two brothers, the counts of Anjou and 
Poitiers, and all the other crusaders, drawn up in a body and shackeled, 
followed on foot on the river-bank. The advance guard and all the rest of 
the army soon met the same fate= A negotiation was opened between Louis 
and the Sultan Malek-Moaddam, Avho, having previously freed him from his 
chains, had him treated with a certain magnificence. The king was awaiting 
aboard his ship for the payment which his people were to make for the 
release of his brother, the count of Poitiers ; and when he saw approaching 
a bark on which he recognized his brother, " Light up ! light up ! " he cried 
instantly to his sailors ; which was the signal agreed upon for setting out. 
And leaving forthwith the coast of Egypt, the fleet which bore the remains 
of the Christian army made sail for the shores of Palestine. 

The king, having arrived at St. Jean d'Acre on the 14th of I\Iay, 1250, 
accepted, without shrinking, the trial imposed upon him by his unfortunate 
situation. Twice he believed he was on the point of accomplishing his desire 
— the recovery of the Holy Sepulcher from the Mussulmans, and the re- 
establishment of the kingdom of Jerusalem. At the commencement of the 
year 1253, at Sidon, he heard that his mother. Queen Blanche, had died at 
Paris on the 27th of November, 1252. This melancholy news induced him to 
return to Europe ; he embarked at St. Jean d'Acre, on the 24th of April, 
1254, and arrived, after a stormy passage, on the 8th of July. Passing slowly 
through France he entered Paris the 7th of September, 1254. 

For seven years after his return to France, from 1254 to 1261, Louis 
seemed to be in a continual ferment of imagination and internal fever, ever 
flattering himself that some favorable circumstance would call him back to 
his interrupted work. In 1263, the crusade was openly preached ; taxes were 
levied, even on the clergy, for the purpose of contributing toward it ; 
and princes and barons bound themselves to take part in it. Louis was 
all approval and encouragement, without declaring his own intention. In 
1267 a parliament was convoked at Paris. Next year, on the 9th of February, 



46 



FRANCE.— THE CARLOVINGIANS. 



[1270 



a new parliament assembled at Paris ; the king took an oath to start in the 
month of May, 1270. 

Saint Louis left Paris on the i6th of March, 1270, a sick man almost 
already, but with soul content, and probably the only one without misgiving 
in the midst of all his comrades. It was once more at Aigues-Mortes that he 
went to embark. All was as yet dark and undecided as to the plan of the 
expedition. At last, on the 2d of July, 1270, he set sail without any one's 
knowing and without the king's telling any one whither they were going. It 
was only in Sardinia, after four days' halt at Cagliari, that Louis announced 
to the chiefs of the crusade, assembled aboard his ship, the Mountjoy, that he 
was making for Tunis, and that their Christian work would commence there. 

But on the 17th of July, when the fleet arrived before Tunis, the admiral, 
Florent de Varennes, probably without the king's orders, and with that want 
of reflection which was conspicuous at each step of the enterprise, 
immediately took possession of the harbor and of some Tunisian vessels as 
prize. Thus war was commenced at the very first moment against the 
Mussulman prince whom there had been a promise of seeing before long a 
Christian. 

On the 3d of August Louis was attacked by the epidemic fever, and 
obliged to keep his bed in his tent ; the illness soon took an unfavorable turn, 
and no hopes of recovery could be entertained. During the night of the 
24th-25th of August he ceased to speak, all the time continuing to show that 
he was in full possession of his senses, and on Monday, the 25th of August, 
1270, at 3 P. M., he departed in peace while uttering these last words : 
" Father, after the example of the Divine Master, into thy hands I commend 
my spirit ! " 




IV. 




T the first glance, two facts strike us in the history of 
the kingship in France. It was in France that it 
adopted soonest and most persistently maintained its 
fundamental principle, heredity ; only in France was 
there, at any time during eight centuries, but a single 
^^ king and a single line of kings. Unity and heredity, 
those two essential principles of monarchy, have been 
the invariable characteristics of the kingship in France. 

A second fact, less apparent and less remarkable, but, 
nevertheless, not without importance or without effect upon the 
history of the kingship in France, is the extreme variety of 
character, of faculties, of intellectual and moral bent, of policy 
and personal conduct among the French kings. Absolute 
monarchical power in France Avas, almost in every successive reign, 
singularly modified, being at one time aggravated and at another 
alleviated, according to the ideas, sentiments, morals, and spontaneous 
instincts of the monarchs. Nowhere else, throughout the great European 
monarchies, has the difference between kingly personages exercised so much 
influence on government and national condition. In that country the free 
action of individuals has filled a prominent place and taken a prominent part in 
the course of events. Louis did not direct to a distance from home his ambition 
and his efforts ; it was within his own dominion, to check the violence of the 
strong against the weak, to put a stop to the quarrels of the strong among 
themselves, to make an end, in France at least, of unrighteousness and 
devastation, and to establish there some sort of order and some sort of 
justice, that he displayed his energy and his perseverance. Sometimes, when 
the people and their habitual protectors, the bishops, invoked his aid, Louis 
would carry his arms beyond his own dominions, by sole right of justice and 
kingship. " It is known," says Suger, " that kings have long hands." Twice, 
in 1 109 and in 11 16, he had war in Normandy with Henry I., king of England, 
and he therein was guilty of certain temerities resulting in a reverse, which 
he hastened to rapair during a vigorous prosecution of the campaign ; but, 
when once his honor was satisfied, he showed a ready inclination for the 
peace which the pope, Calixtus II., in council at Rome, succeeded in 
■establishing between the two rivals. The war with the emperor of Germany, 



48 FRANCE.— THE KINGSHIP. [1124. 

Henry V., in 1124, appeared, at the first blush, a more serious matter. 
France summoned the flower of her chivalry, and at the news of this 
mighty host, and of the ardor with which they were animated, the Emperor 
Henry V. advanced no farther, and, before long, " marching, under some 
pretext, toward other places, he preferred the shame of retreating like a 
coward to the risk of exposing his empire and himself to certain destruction. 
After this victory, which was more than as great as a triumph on the field of 
battle, the French returned every one to their homes." 

A marriage between Eleanor and Louis the Young, already sharing his 
father's throne, was soon concluded : it took place at Bordeaux, at the end of 
July, 1 137, and on the 8th of August following Louis the Young, on his way 
back to Paris, was crowned at Poitiers as duke of Aquitaine. He there 
learned that the king his father had lately died, on the ist of August. In 
spite of its long duration of forty-three years, the reign of Louis VII., called 
the Young, was a period barren of events and of persons worthy of keeping 
a place in history. 

So long as Suger lived the kingship preserved at home the wisdom 
which it had been accustomed to display, and abroad the respect it had 
acquired under Louis the Fat ; but at the death of Suger it went on 
languishing and declining without encountering any great obstacle. 

Philip II., to whom history has preserved the name of Philip Augustus, 
given him by his contemporaries, had shared the crown, been anointed, and 
married Isabel a year before the death of Louis VII. put him in possession 
of the kingdom. He soon let it be seen that he intended to reign by himself, 
and to reign with vigor. He made the extension and territorial connection 
of France the one chief aim of his life, and in that work he was successful. 
Out of the forty-three years of his reign, twenty-six at least were war years 
devoted to this purpose. Philip Augustus, once in possession of the 
personal power as well as the title of king, it was, from 1187 to 12 16, against 
three successive kings of England, Henry II., Richard Coeur de Lion, and 
John Lackland, masters of the most beautiful provinces of France, that 
Philip directed his persistent efforts. They were in respect of power, of 
political capacity, and military popularity, his most formidable foes ; he 
managed, however, to hold his own against them ; and when, after Richard's 
death, he had to do with John Lackland, he had over him, even more than 
over his brother Richard, immense advantages. He made such use of them 
that after six years' struggling, from 1199 to 1205, he deprived John of the 
greater part of his French possessions — Anjou, Normandy, Touraine, Maine, 
and Poitou. The king of France thus recovered possession of nearly all the 
territories which his father, Louis VII., had kept but for a moment. He 
added in succession other provinces to his dominions ; in such wise that the 
kingdom of France was much increased on all sides. 

In 1206 the territorial work of Philip Augustus was well nigh completed ; 
but his wars were not over. John Lackland when worsted kicked against the 
pricks, and was incessantly hankering, in his antagonism to the king of 



£153] FRANCE.— THE KINGSHIP. 49 

France, after hostile alliances and local conspiracies, easy to hatch amono- 
certain feudal lords discontented with their suzerain. Being on intimate 
.terms with his nephew, Otho IV., emperor of Germany and the foe of Philip 
Augustus, he urged him to prepare for a grand attack upon the king of 
France, and the two aUies had won over to their coalition some of his most 
important vassals, among others, Renaud de Dampierre, count of Boulogne. 
The invasion of England, boldly attempted by Philip, proved a failure. On 
the 8th of April, 12 13, he convoked, at Soissons, his principal vassals or allies, 
explained to them the grounds of his design against the king of England, 
and they bound themselves to support him. Only one vassal refused to join 
him, Ferrand, count of Flanders. The war between Philip on one side and 
Ferrand and England on the other has already been chronicled in our history 
•of England. It ended by the battle of Bouvines, on Sunday, July 27th, 12 14, 
with a victory for the French. The victory of Bouvines marked the com- 
^mencement of the time at which men might speak, and indeed did speak, by 
•one single name, of tJie French. The nation in France and the kingship in 
France on that day rose out of and above the feudal system. 

Philip Augustus was about the same time apprised of his son Louis' 
success on the banks of the Loire. The incapacity and swaggering insolence 
of King John had made all his Poitevine allies disgusted with him ; he had 
been obliged to abandon his attack upon the king of France in the provinces, 
and the insurrection, growing daily more serious, of the English barons and 
clergy for the purpose of obtaining Magna Charta, was preparing for him 
other reverses. He had ceased to be a dangerous rival to Philip. 

The organization of the kingdom, the nation, and the kingship in France 
was not the only great event and the only great achievement of that epoch. 
At the same time that this political movement was going on in the State, a 
religious and intellectual ferment was making head in the Church and in men's 
minds ; in the course of this active and salutary participation in the affairs of 
the world, the Christian clergy lost somewhat of their primitive and proper 
character. And, at the same time, in addition to this outburst of piety, igno- 
rance was decried and stigmatized as the source of the prevailing evils ; the 
function of teaching was included among the duties of the religious estate. 
Activity and freedom of thought were developing at the same time that 
fervent faith and piety were. 

The struggle of Abelard with the Church of Northern France and the 
crusade against the Albigensians in Southern France are divided by much 
more than diversity and contrast ; there is an abyss between them. In North- 
ern France, in spite of internal disorder and through the influence of its 
bishops, missionaries, and monastic reformers, the orthodox Church had 
obtained a decided superiority and full dominion ; but in Southern France, on 
the contrary, all the controversies, all the sects, and all the mystical or philo- 
sophical heresies which had disturbed Christendom from the second century 
to the ninth, had crept in and spread abroad. 

For half a century after the death of St. Bernard in 11 53 the orthodox 

4 



50 FRANCE.- -THE KINGSHIP. [1153 

Church was several times engaged in crusades against the Albigensians of 
Southern France. Innocent III. at first employed against them only spiritual 
weapons, but after the murder of his legate, Peter de Castelnau, he began to 
proceed to extremities. The crusades against the Albigensians, which he 
sanctioned, were striking applications of two pernicious principles, denial of 
religious liberty to conscience and of political independence to States. It was 
by virtue of these two principles, at that time dominant, that Innocent III., 
in 1208, summoned the king of France, the great lords and the knights, and 
the clergy, secular and regular, of the kingdom to assume the cross and go 
forth to extirpate from Southern France the Albigensians — " worse than the 
Saracens." 

Through all France, and even outside of France, the passions of religion 
and ambition were aroused at this summons. Twelve abbots and twenty 
monks of Citeaux dispersed themselves in all directions preaching the crusade ; 
and lords and knights, burghers and peasants, laymen and clergy, hastened to 
respond. These crusaders were passionately ardent and persevering. The 
war lasted twenty-one years (from 1208 to 1229) and the two leading spirits, 
one ordering and the other executing. Pope Innocent III. and Simon de 
Montfort, neither saw the end of it. During these twenty-one years, in 
the region situated between the Rhone, the Pyrenees, the Garonne, and even 
the Dordogne, nearly all the towns and strong castles were taken, lost,, 
retaken, given over to pillage, sack and massacre, and burnt by the crusaders 
with all the cruelty of fanatics and all the greed of conquerors. Innocent III. 
had promised the crusaders the enjoyment of the domains they might win by 
conquest from princes who were heretics or protectors of heretics. After the 
capture, in 1209, of Beziers and Carcassonne, the sovereignty of these 
possessions was granted by the Pope to Simon, lord of Montfort, earl of 
Leicester. From this time forth the war in Southern France changed charac- 
ter, or, rather, it assumed a double character ; with the war of religion was 
openly joined a war of conquest. Finally, on the 25th of June, 1218, Simon 
de Montfort, who had been for nine months unsuccessfully besieging Tou- 
louse, which had again come into the possession of Raymond VI., was killed 
by a shower of stones under the walls of the place, and left to his son Amaury 
the inheritance of his war and his conquests. Fortune deserted him, for 
Amaury de Montfort was losing ground every day, and Raymond VI., when 
he died in August, 1222, had recovered the greater part of his dominions. His 
son, Raymond VII., continued the war for eighteen months longer, with 
enough of popular favor and of success to make his enemies despair of recov- 
ering their advantages; and, on the 14th of January, 1224, Amaury de Mont- 
fort, after having concluded with the counts of Toulouse and Foix a treaty 
which seemed to have only a provisional character, ceded to Louis VIII., 
then king of France, his rights over the domains which the crusaders had 
conquered. 

While this cruel war lasted Philip Augustus would not take any part in 
it. He received visits from Count Raymond VL, and openly testified good 



1248] • FRANCE.— THE KINGSHIP. 51 

will toward him. When Simon de Montfort was decisively victorious, and in 
possession of the places wrested from Raymond, Philip Augustus recognized 
accomplished facts, and received the new count of Toulouse as his vassal ; but 
when^ after the death of Simon de Montfort and Innocent III., the question 
was once more thrown open, and when Raymond VI. first, and then his son 
Raymond VII., had recovered the greater part of their dominions, Philip 
formally refused to recognize Amaury de Montfort as successor to his father's 
conquests ; nay, he did more, he refused to accept the cession of those con- 
quests, offered to him by Amaury de Montfort and pressed upon him by 
Pope Honorius III. In his political life he always preserved this proper 
mean, and he found it succeeded ; but in his domestic life there came a day 
when he suffered himself to be hurried out of his usual deference toward the 
pope ; and, after a violent attempt at resistance, he resigned himself to sub- 
mission. The circumstance we are alluding to is his repudiation of Ingeburga 
of Denmark, and his marriage with the Tyrolese princess Agnes of Merania, 
daughter of Bethold, marquis of Istria, whom, about 11 80, the emperor, 
Frederick Barbarossa, had made duke of Moravia. The pope threatened 
Philip with the interdict ; that is, the suspension of all religious ceremonies, 
festivals, and forms in the Church of France. The king resisted not only the 
threat, but also the sentence of the interdict, which was actually pronounced, 
first in the churches of the royal domain, and afterward in those of the whole 
kingdom. For four years the struggle went on. At last Philip yielded to 
the injunction of the Pope and the feeling of his people ; he sent away Agnes 
and recalled Ingeburga. He had for several months been battling with an 
incessant fever ; he was obliged to halt at Nantes, and there he died on the 
14th of January, 1222, leaving the kingdom of France far more extensive and 
more compact, and the kingship in France far stronger and more respected 
than he had found them. His son, Louis VIII., inherited a great kingdom, 
an undisputed crown, and a power that was respected. He died on the 8th 
of November, 1226, after a reign of three years, adding to the history of 
France no glory save that of having been the son of Philip Augustus, the 
husband of Blanche of Castile, and the father of St. Louis. 

We have already pursued the most brilliant and celebrated among the 
events of St. Louis' reign, his two crusades against the Mussulmans. It is 
now of Louis in France and of his government at home that we have to take 
note. And in this part of his history he is not the only royal and really 
regnant personage we encounter ; for of the forty-four years of St. Louis' 
reign, nearly fifteen, with a long interval of separation, pertained to the gov- 
ernment of Queen Blanche of Castile rather than to that of the king her 
son. Louis, at his accession, in 1226, was only eleven ; and he remained a 
minor up to the age of twenty-one, in 1236, for the time of majority in the 
case of royalty was not yet specially and rigorously fixed. During those ten 
years Queen Blanche governed France ; not at all, as is commonly asserted, 
with the official title of regent, but simply as guardian of the king her son. 
It was not until twenty-two years had passed, in 1248, that Louis, on starting 



52 FRANCE.— THE KINGSHIP. [1252 

for the crusade, officially delegated to his mother the kingly authority, and 
that Blanche, during her son's absence, really governed with the title of regent, 
up to the 1st of December, 1252, the day of his death. 

The entrance of Louis IX. upon the personal exercise of kingly power 
produced no change in the conduct of affairs from the wise policy of his 
mother. 

Hugh de Lusignan, count of la Marche, had not only declined doing 
homage to the king's brother, Alphonso, count of Poitiers, whose vassal he 
was, but had also excited to rebellion certain powerful lords of la Marche, 
Saintonge, and Angoumois, and had called to his assistance Henry III., king 
of England, son of the countess of la Marche. " As my name is Louis," 
said the king, " the count of la Marche doth claim to hold land in such wise, 
land which hath been a fief of France since the days of the valiant King 
Clovis, who won all Aquitaine from King Alaric, a pagan without faith or 
creed, and all the country to the Pyrenean mount." And the barons 
promised the king their energetic co-operation. 

Near two towns of Saintonge, Taiblebourg and Saintes, at a bridge 
which covers the approaches of one, and in front of the walls of the other, 
Louis, on the 21st and 22d of July, fought two battles, in which the brilliancy 
of his personal valor and the affectionate enthusiasm he excited in his troops 
secured victory and the surrender of the two places. He entered into 
negotiations, successively, with the count of la Marche, the king of England, 
the count of Toulouse, the king of Aragon, and the various princes and great 
feudal lords who had been more or less engaged in the war; and in January, 
1243, the treaty of Lorris marked the end of feudal troubles for the whole 
duration of St. Louis' reign. An obstinate civil war was raging between 
Henry III. and his barons. Neither party, in defending its own rights, had 
any notion of respecting the rights of its adversaries, and England was 
alternating between a kingly and an aristocratic tyranny. Louis, chosen as 
arbiter by both sides, delivered solemnly, on the 23d of January, 1264, a 
decision which was favorable to the English kingship, but at the same time 
expressly upheld the Great Charter and the traditional liberties of England. 
He concluded his decision with the following suggestions of amnesty : " We 
will also that the king of England and his barons do forgive one another 
mutually, that they do forget all the resentments that may exist between 
them by consequence of the matters submitted to our arbitration, and that 
henceforth they do refrain reciprocally from any offense and injury on 
account of the same matters." Five centuries afterward the great English 
historian, Hume, rendered him due homage in these terms: " Every time 
this virtuous prince interfered in the affairs of England, it was invariably 
with the view of settling differences between the king and the nobility. 
Adopting an admirable course of conduct, as politic probably as it certainly 
was just, he never interposed his good offices save to put an end to the disagree- 
ments of the English ; he seconded all the measures which could give security 
to both parties, and he made persistent efforts, though without success, to 



1282] FRANCE.— THE KINGSHIP. 53 

moderate the fiery ambition of the earl of Leicester." (Hume, " History of 
England," t. ii. p. 465.) 

One special fact in the civil and municipal administration of St. Louis 
deserves to find a place in history. After the time of Philip Augustus there 
was malfeasance in the police of Paris. The provostship of Paris, which 
comprehended functions analogous to those of prefect, mayor, and receiver- 
general, became a purchasable office, filled sometimes by two provosts at a 
time. The burghers no longer found justice or security in the city where the 
king resided. At his return from his first crusade, Louis recognized the 
necessity for applying a remedy to this evil ; the provostship ceased to be a 
purchasable office ; and he made it separate from the receivership of the 
royal domain. In 1258 he chose as provost Stephen Boileau, a burgher of 
note and esteem in Paris ; and in order to give this magistrate the authority 
of which he had need, the king sometimes came and sat beside him when he 
was administering justice at the Chatelet. Stephen Boileau justified the 
king's confidence, and maintained so strict a police that he had his own 
godson hanged for theft. 

For all his moral sympathy, and superior as he was to his age, St. Louis, 
nevertheless, shared and even helped to prolong two of its greatest mistakes ; 
as a Christian he misconceived the rights of conscience in respect of religion, 
and, as a king, he brought upon his people deplorable evils and perils for the 
sake of a fruitless enterprise. 

"iC St. Louis was succeeded by his son, Philip III., a prince, no doubt, of 
some personal valor, since he has retained in history the nickname of T/ic 
Bold, but not otherwise beyond mediocrity. His reign had an unfortunate 
beginning. He came to Paris on the 21st of May, 1271, bringing back with 
him five royal biers, that of his father, that of his brother, John Tristan, 
count of Nevers, that of his brother-in-law, Theobald, king of Navarre, that of 
his wife, and that of his son. The day after his arrival he conducted them all 
in state to the Abbey of St. Denis, and was crowned at Reims not until the 
30th of August following. His reign, which lasted fifteen years, was a period 
■of neither repose nor glory. He engaged in war several times over in 
Southern France and in the north of Spain, in 1272, against Roger Bernard, 
•count of Foix, and in 1275 against Don Pedro III., king of Aragon, attempting 
conquests and gaining victories, but becoming easily disgusted with his 
enterprises and gaining no result of importance or durability. It was in the 
reign of Philip the Bold that there took place in Sicily, on the 30th of March, 
1282, that notorious massacre of the French which is known by the name of 
Sicilian Vespers, which was provoked by the unbridled excesses of Charles of 
Anjou's comrades, and through which many noble Frenclj families had to 
suffer cruelly. At the same time, the celebrated Italian admiral, Roger de 
Loria, inflicted, by sea, on the French party in Italy, the Provencal navy, and 
the army of Philip the Bold, reverses and losses. The government of Philip 
III. showed hardly more ability at home than in Europe; he was weak, 
credulous, very illiterate, and without penetration, foresight, or will. He fell 



54 FRANCE.— THE KINGSHIP. [1282 

under the influence of an inferior house servant, Peter de la Brosse, who had 
been a barber. 

In spite of the want of abihty and the weakness conspicuous in the 
government of Phihp the Bold, the kingship in France had in his reign 
better fortune than could be expected. 

A Flemish chronicler, a monk at Egmont, describes the character of 
Philip the Bold's successor in the following words: "A certain king of 
France, also named Philip, eaten up by the fever of avarice and cupidity." 
And that was not the only fever inherent in Philip IV., called The Handsome; 
he was a prey also to that of ambition, and above all, to that of power. 
When he mounted the throne, at seventeen years of age, he was handsome, 
as his nickname tells us, cold, taciturn, harsh, brave at need, but without fire 
or dash. 

Away from his own kingdom, in his own dealings with foreign countries, 
Philip the Handsome had a good fortune, which his predecessors had lacked, 
and which his successors lacked still more. In spite of frequent interruptions, 
the reign of Edward I. was on the whole a period of peace between England 
and France, being exempt, at any rate, from premeditated and obstinate 
hostilities. 

In Southern France, at the foot of the Pyrenees, Philip the Handsome 
was, during the first year of his reign, at war with the kings of Aragon, 
Alphonso III. and Jayme II.; but these campaigns were terminated by a 
treaty concluded at Tarascon, and have remained without any historical 
importance. At the time of Philip the Handsome's accession to the throne 
Guy de Dampierre, of noble Champagnese origin, had been for five years 
count of Flanders, as heir to his mother Marguerite II. He was a prince 
who did not lack courage, or, on a great emergency, high-mindedness and 
honor ; but he was ambitious, covetous, as parsimonious as his mother had 
been munificent. In 1293 he was secretly negotiating the marriage of 
Philippa, one of his daughters, with Prince Edward, eldest son of the king of 
England. Philip the Handsome, having received due warning, invited the 
count of Flanders to Paris, "to take counsel with him and the other barons 
touching the state of the kingdom." At first Guy hesitated ; but he dared 
not refuse, and he repaired to Paris with his sons John and Guy. The three 
princes were marched off at once to the tower of the Louvre, where Guy 
remained for six months. When he was released, Count Guy returned to 
Flanders and concluded a treaty with Edward I., and formally renounced his 
allegiance to Philip the Handsome. This meant war. And it was prompt 
and sharp on the part of the king of France, slow and dull on the part of 
the king of England, who was always more bent upon the conquest of 
Scotland than upon defending, on the Continent, his ally the count of 
Flanders. The French arms were at first crowned with success. In 1302 war 
again broke out, but it was no longer a war between Philip the Handsome 
and Guy de Dampierre ; it was a war between the Flemish communes and 
their foreign oppressors. Philip the Handsome precipitately levied an army 



1297] FRANCE.— THE KINGSHIP. 55 

of sixty thousand men, says Villani, and gave the command of it to Count 
Robert of Artois, the hero of Furnes. The forces of the Flemings amounted 
to no more than twenty thousand fighting men. The two armies met near 
Courtrai. Two grand attacks succeeded one another; the first under the 
orders of the Constable Raoul of Nesle, the second under those of the count 
of Artois in person. After two hours' fighting, both failed against the fiery 
national passion of the Flemish communes, and the two French leaders, the 
Constable and the count of Artois, were left both of them lying on the 
field of battle amid twelve or fifteen thousand of their dead. 

The news of this great defeat of the French spread rapidly throughout 
Europe, and filled with joy all those who were hostile to or jealous of Philip 
the Handsome. The wily monarch spent two years in negotiations, for the 
purpose of gaining time and of letting the edge wear off the Flemings' 
confidence. In the spring of 1304 the cry of war resounded everywhere. 
He had taken into his pay a Genoese fleet commanded by Regnicr de 
Grimaldi, a celebrated Italian admiral ; and it arrived in the North Sea, and 
blockaded Zierikzee, a maritime town of Zealand. On the loth of August, 
1304, the Flemish fleet which was defending the place was beaten and 
dispersed. Philip hoped for a moment that this reverse would discourage the 
Flemings ; but it was not so at all. A great battle took place on the 17th of 
August between the two land armies at Mons-en-Puelle near Lille, and 
resulted in a Flemish defeat. Thus during ten years, from 1305 to 13 14, 
there was between France and Flanders a continual alternation of reciprocal 
concessions and retractions, of treaties concluded and of renewed insurrections 
without decisive and ascertained results. It was neither peace nor war. 
Philip the Handsome had been nine years king when Boniface VIII. became 
pope. On his accession to the throne, he had testified an intention of 
curtailing the privileges and powers of the Church. At the time of the 
crusades the property of the clergy had been subjected to a special tax of a 
tenth of the revenues, and this tax had been several times renewed for 
reasons other than the crusades. In 1296 Philip the Handsome, at war with 
the king of England and the Flemings, imposed upon the clergy two fresh 
tenths, and the order of Citeaux refused to pay them, and addressed to the 
pope a protest, with a comparison between Philip and Pharaoh. Boniface 
addressed to the king a bull called from its first two words Clcricis laicos. 
Philip was mighty wroth, but he did not burst out, though he contrived to 
show his displeasure by means of divers administrative measures. A year 
after the bull Clericis laicos he modified it by a new bull, which not only 
authorized the collection of two tenths voted by the French bishops, but 
recognized the right of the king of France to tax the French clergy with 
their consent and without authorization from the Holy See. An opportunity 
for a splendid confirmation of the pope's universal supremacy in the Christian 
world came to tempt him. A quarrel had arisen between Philip and the 
archbishop of Narbonne on the subject of certain dues claimed by both m 
that great diocese. Boniface was loud in his advocacy of the archbishop 



S6 FRANCE.— THE KINGSHIP. [1297 

against the officers of the king; he sent to Paris, to support his words, 
Bernard de Saisset, whom he, on his own authority, had just appointed 
bishop of Pamiers. On arriving in Paris as the pope's legate, Saisset made 
use there of violent and inconsiderate language. Philip had at that time, as 
his chief councillors, lay-lawyers, servants passionately attached to the 
kingship. They, in their turn, rose up against the doctrine and language of 
the bishop of Famiers. He was arrested and committed to the keeping of 
the archbishop of Narbonne ; and Philip sent to Rome his chancellor Peter 
Flotte himself and William of Nogaret, with orders to demand the 
condemnation of the bishop of Pamiers. Boniface replied by changing the 
venue to his own personal tribunal in the case of Bernard de Saisset. On the 
5th of December, 1301, he addressed to the king, commencing with the 
words, "Hearken, most dear Son'' {Aiiscitlta, carissivie fill), a long bull in 
which, with circumlocutions and expositions full of obscurity and subtlety, he 
laid down and affirmed, at bottom, the principle of the final sovereignty 
of the spiritual power, being of divine origin, over every temporal power, 
being of human creation. On the nth of February, 1302, this bull was 
burned at Paris in the presence of the king. On the 8th of April an 
assembly of the barons, bishops and chief ecclesiastics, with the deputies 
of the communes to the number of two or three from each city, was 
convoked by Philip. This assembly, which really met on the loth of April 
at Paris in the church of Notre-Dame, is reckoned in French history as the 
first " States-general." The king evidently had on his side the general feeling 
of the nation, and the publication, of a third bull, {Unam sanctani), which 
threatened him with excommunication, only the more irritated him ; he 
resolved to act speedily. Notification must be sent to the pope of the king's 
appeal to the future council. Philip could no longer confide this awkward 
business to his chancellor Peter Flotte ; for he had fallen at Courtrai in the 
battle against the Flemings. William of Nogaret undertook it, at the same 
time obtaining from the king a sort of blank commission, authorizing and 
ratifying in advance all that, under the circumstances, he might consider it 
advisable to do. Nogaret was bold, ruffianly, and clever. He repaired in 
haste to Florence to the king's banker, got a plentiful supply of money, 
established communications in Anagni, and secured, above all, the co-oper- 
ation of Sciarra Colonna. On the 7th of September, 1303, Colonna and his 
associates introduced Nogaret and his following into Anagni, with shouts of 
" Death to Pope Boniface ! Long live the king of France ! " The populace, 
dumbfounded, remained motionless. The pope, deserted by all, even by his 
own nephew, tried to touch the heart of Colonna himself, whose only answer 
was a summons to abdicate, and to surrender at discretion. Thus outraged in 
spite of his advanced years (he was seventy-five), Boniface maintained a 
dauntless attitude under the grossest insults, but died very shortly after. 

On the 22d of October, 1303, eleven days after the death of Boniface 
VIII. , Benedict XL, son of a simple shepherd, was elected at Rome to 
succeed him. Benedict XL exerted himself to eive satisfaction to the 



13 14] FRANCE.— THE COMMUNES. 57 

conqueror; Nogaret and the direct authors of the assault at Anagni were 
alone excepted from the general amnesty. The pope reserved for a future 
occasion the announcement of their absolution, when he should consider it 
expedient. But, on the 7th of June, 1304, instead of absolving them, he 
launched a fresh bull of excommunication against " certain wicked men who 
had dared to commit a hateful crime against a person of good memory, Pope 
Boniface.' A month after this bull Benedict XL was dead. The chroniclers 
of the time imputed this crime to William of Nogaret, to the Colonnas, and 
to their associates at Anagni. The king of France, who had gained the 
battle of Mons-en-Puelle, then took advantage of his success to procure the 
election of a pope who would be entirely and exclusively his creature. The 
archbishop of Bordeaux, Bertrand de Got, proclaimed under the title of 
Clement V., had to accept, in return, the harshest conditions, such as 
pronouncing the condemnation of Boniface VIII., transferring the Papal See 
from Rome to Avignon, authorizing the suppression of the order of the. 
Kights Templars, etc. The great wealth possessed by the order of the 
Temple was the true cause of Philip's hatred, but as some plausible cause 
was needed to procure their condemnation they were accused of heresy, 
immorality and sacrilege. The council of Vienne condemned them, but the 
grand master, Jacques Molay, protested of their innocence to the very last. 
" The grand master, seeing the fire prepared, stripped himself briskly. I tell 
just as I saw : he bared himself to his shirt, light-heartedly and with a good 
grace, without a whit of trembling, though he Avas dragged and shaken 
mightily. They took hold of him to tie him to the stake, and they were 
binding his hands with a cord, but he said to them, ' Sirs, suffer me to fold 
my hands awhile, and make my prayer to God, for verily it is time. I am 
presently to die ; but wrongfully, God wot. Wherefore woe will come, ere 
long, to those who condemn us without a cause. God will avenge our 
death.' " 

A popular rumor soon spread abroad that Jacques Molay, at his death, 
had cited the pope and the king to appear with him, the former at the end of 
forty days and the latter within a year, before the judgment seat of God. 
Clement V. actually died on the 20th of April, 13 14, and Philip the 
Handsome on the 29th of November, 13 14; the pope, undoubtedly uneasy at 
the servile acquiescence he had shown toward the king, and the king 
expressing some sorrow for his greed, and for the imposts with which he had 
burdened his people. 

Philip the Handsome left three sons, Louis X., called Ic Hutin {the 
Quarreler), Philip V., called tJie Long, and Charles IV., called the Handsome, 
who, between them, occupied the throne only thirteen years and ten months. 
Not one of them distinguished himself by his personal merits ; and the 
events of the three reigns hold scarcely a higher place in history than the 
actions of the three kings do. Louis the Quarreler had to keep up the war 
with Flanders, which was continually being renewed ; and in order to find, 
without hateful exactions, the necessary funds, he was advised to offer 



58 FRANCE.— THE COMMUNES [1315 

freedom to the serfs of his domains ; accordingly he issued, on the 3d of July, 

13 1 5, an edict to that effect. 

Another fact which has held an important place in the history of France, 
and exercised a great influence over her destinies, likewise dates from this 
period ; and that is the exclusion of women from the succession to the 
throne, by virtue of an article, ill understood, of the Salic law. From the 
time of Hugh Capet heirs male had never been wanting to the crown, and 
the succession in the male line had been a fact uninterrupted indeed, but not 
due to prescription or law. Louis the Quarreler, at his death, on the 5th of 
June, +3i5T left only a daughter, but his second wife, Queen Clemence, was 
pregnant. On the 15th of November, 1316, the queen gave birth to a son, 
who was named John, and who figures as John I. in the series of French 
kings, but the child died at the end of five days, and on the 6th of January, 

1 3 16, Philip the Long was crowned king at Reims. He forthwith sum- 
moned, there is no knowing exactly where and in what numbers, the clergy, 
barons, and third estate who declared, on the 2d of February, that " the laws 
and customs, inviolably observed among the Franks, excluded daughters from 
the crown." There was no doubt about the fact ; but the law was not 
established, nor even in conformity with the entire feudal system or with 
general opinion. But the measure was evidently wise and salutary for France 
as well as for the kingship ; and it was renewed, after Philip the Long died, 
on the 3d of January, 1322, and left daughters only, in favor of his brother 
Charles the Handsome, who died, in his turn, on the ist of January, 1328, 
and likewise left daughters only. The question as to the succession to the 
throne then lay between the male line represented by Philip, count of Valois, 
grandson of Philip the Bold through Charles of Valois his father, and the 
female line represented by Edward HL, king of England, grandson, through 
his mother Isabel, sister of the late king Charles the Handsome, of Philip the 
Handsome. A war of more than a century's duration between France and 
England was the result of this lamentable rivalry, which all but put the 
kingdom of France under an English king ; but France was saved by the 
stubborn resistance of the national spirit and by Joan of Arc inspired by 
God. 

This period was likewise the cradle of the French nation. That was the 
time when it began to exhibit itself in its different elements, and to arise 
under monarchical rule from the midst of the feudal system. The Communes, 
which should not be confounded with the Third Estate, are the first to appear 
in history. They appear there as local facts, isolated one from another, 
often very different in point of origin, though analogous in their aim, and in 
every case neither assuming nor pretending to assume any place in the 
government of the State. It is exactly then that the Third Estate comes to 
the front, and uplifts itself as a general fact, a national element, a political 
power. It is the successor, not the contemporary, of the Commimes; they 
contributed much toward, but did not suffice for its formation ; it drew upon 
other resources, and was developed under other influences than those which 



1328] FRANCE.— THE THIRD ESTATE. 59 

gave existence to the communes. When they succeeded, they obtained those 
treaties of peace called charters, which brought about in the condition of the 
insurgents salutary changes accompanied by more or less effectual guarantees. 
When they failed or when the charters were violated, the result was violent 
reactions, mutual excesses ; the relations between the populations and their 
lords were tempestuous and full of vicissitude ; but at bottom neither the 
political regimen nor the social system of the communes were altered. 

At the very time that the communes were perishing, and the kingship was 
growing, a new power, a new social element, the Third Estate, was springing 
up in France ; and it was called to take a far more important place in the history 
of France, and to exercise far more influence upon the fate of the French father- 
land than it had been granted to the communes to acquire during their short 
and incoherent existence. 

Taking the history of France in its entirety and under all its phases, the 
third estate has been the most active and determining element in the process 
of French civilization. If we follow it in its relation with the general gov- 
ernment of the country, we see it at first allied for six centuries to the king- 
ship. But, so soon as it had gained this victory and brought about this 
revolution, the third estate went in pursuit of a new one, attacking that single 
power to the foundation of which it had contributed so much, and entering 
upon the task of changing pure monarchy into constitutional monarchy. 

This fact is unique in the history of the world. We recognize in the 
career of the chief nations of Asia and ancient Europe nearly all the great 
facts which have agitated France ; but nowhere is there any appearance of a 
class which, starting from the very lowest, from being feeble, despised, and 
almost imperceptible at its origin, rises by perpetual motion and by labor 
without respite, strengthens itself from period to period, acquires in succession 
whatever it lacked, wealth, enlightenment, influence, changes the face of soci- 
ety and the nature of government, and arrives at last at such a pitch of 
predominance that it may be said to be absolutely the country. 

Not only is the fact new, but it is a fact eminently French, essentially 
national. Nowhere has burgherdom had so wide and so productive a career as 
that which fell to its lot in France. There have been communes in the whole 
of Europe, in Italy, Spain, Germany, and England, as well as in France, but 
there has not really been a victorious third estate anywhere except in France. 




V. 



THE HOMED EAES' f AE. 




N the fourteenth century a new and a vital question 
arose ; will the French dominion preserve its nationality? 
Will the kingship remain French or pass to the for- 
eigner? This question brought ravages upon France and 
kept her fortunes in suspense for a hundred years of war 
with England, from the reign of Philip of Valois to that 
of Charles VII.; and a young girl of Lorraine, called Joan 
of Arc, had the glory of communicating to France that decisive 
impulse which brought to a triumphant issue the independence of 
the French nation and kingship. 

Some weeks after his accession, on the 29th of May, 1328, Philip 
was crowned at Reims, in presence of a brilliant assemblage of 
princes and lords, French and foreign ; next year, on the 6th of 
June, Edward III., king of England, being summoned to fulfill a 
vassal's duties by doing homage to the king of France for the 
duchy of Aquitaine, which he held, appeared in the cathedral of 
Amiens, with his crown on his head, his sword at his side, and his- 
gilded spurs on his heels ; and on the 30th of March, 1 331, he recognized, by 
letters express, " that the said homage which we did at Amiens to the king of 
France in general terms, is, and must be understood as liege : and that we are 
bound, as duke of Aquitaine, and peer of France, to show him faith and loy- 
alty." 

The relations between the two kings were not destined to be for long so 
courteous and so pacific. 

The reader is referred to the History of England for a record of the con- 
tinued strife between Philip VI. and the English king, Edward III., the 
principal events of which are as follows : 

1328 Philip VI., king of France, gains the battle of Cassel. 1336 Ed- 
ward III. of England supports the cause of the Flemings against Philip 
VI. of France. 1337 Froissart born. 1340 Edward III. defeats the French 
in a naval engagement near Sluys : truce of four years. 1341 Beginning 
of the war for the succession of Brittany, between Charles of Blois and 
John of Montfort. Petrarch crowned at the Capital. 1344 Edward III. 
renews the war with France. 1346 Battle of Cressy. 1347 Calais surrenders 
to Edward III. after a siege of eleven months and a few days. William 
of Ockham died. 1348 The black plague. The Jews persecuted. 1349 
Cession of Vienness and of Montpelier to France. 



1350] FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 6i 

In the latter part of 1349 Philip of Valois himself, now fifty-eight years of 
age, took for his second wife Blanche of Navarre, who was only eighteen. 
She was a sister of that young king of Navarre, Charles H., who was soon to 
get the name of Charles tlic Bad, and to become so dangerous an enemy of 
Philip's successors. Seven months after his marriage, and on the 22d of 
August, 1350, Philip died at Nogent-le-Roi ill the Haute-Marne, strictly 
enjoining his son John to maintain with vigor his well ascertained right to»the 
crown he wore, and leaving his people bowed down beneath a weight " of 
extortions so heavy that the like had never been seen in the kingdom of 
France." 

His successor, John H., called the Good, on no other ground than that he 
w^as gay, prodigal, credulous and devoted to his favorites, did nothing but 
reproduce, with aggravations, the faults and reverses of his father. 

He compromised more and more seriously every day his own safety and 
that of his successor by vexing more and more, without destroying, his most 
dangerous enemy. He showed no greater prudence or ability in the govern- 
ment of his kingdom. And, nevertheless, King John's necessities were more 
evident and more urgent than ever: war with England had begun again. 

The truth is that, in spite of the truce still existing, the English, since 
the accession of King John, had at several points resumed hostilities. The 
disorders and dissensions to which France was a prey now offered strong 
inducements to the English king. The full account of the invasion of France 
and the battles which finally resulted in the capture of King John is given in 
the History of England. 

The dauphin Charles, aged nineteen, in spite of his youth and his any- 
thing but glorious retreat from Poitiers, took the title of lieutenant of the 
king, and had hardly re-entered Paris, on the 29th of September, when he 
summoned, for the 15th of October, the States-general of Languedoc, who 
met, in point of fact, on the 17th, in the great chamber of parliament. Fresh 
subsidies were granted, but only on very hard conditions. The deputies 
demanded of Charles " that he should deprive of their offices such of the 
king's councillors as they should point out, have them arrested, and confiscate 
all their property." A plot against the marshals, headed by Stephen Marcel, 
came to the apartments of the dauphin, and after some conversation Marcel 
said : " My lord duke, do not alarm yourself ; but we have somewhat to do 
here ;" and turned toward his fellows in the caps, saying, " Dearly beloved, 
do that for the which ye are come." The mob immediately massacred the Lord 
de Conflans, marshal of Champagne, and Robert de Clermont, marshal of 
Normandy, both at the time unarmed, so close to the dauphin that his robe 
was covered with their blood. The dauphin shuddered, and the rest of his 
officers fled. "Take no heed, lord duke," said Marcel; "you have naught to 
fear." He handed to the dauphin his own red and blue cap, and himself put 
on the dauphin's, which was of black stuff with golden fringe. The corpses of 
the two marshals were dragged into the courtyard of the palace, where they 
remained until evening. The king of Navarre was recalled from Nantes to 



62 FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. [ 350 

Paris, and the dauphin was obliged to assign to him, in the king's name, " as a 
make-up for his losses," 10,000 livres a year on landed property in Languedoc. 
On the 25th of March, the young prince succeeded in leaving Paris, and 
repaired first of all to Senlis, and then to Provins, where he found the estates 
of Champagne eager to welcome him. 

The insurrection of the Jacques Bonhonnne (or Jack Goodfellows) gave 
Marcel, as he thought, an opportunity to assert his power. The nobles, the 
dauphin, and the king of Navarre, a prince and a noble at the same time that 
he was a scoundrel, made common cause against the Goodfellows. In Beau- 
vaisis the king of Navarre, after having made a show of treating with their 
chieftain, William Karle or Callet, got possession of him, and had him 
beheaded. He then moved upon a camp of Goodfellozus assembled near 
Montidier, slew three thousand of them and dispersed the remainder. 
Marcel from that moment perceived that his cause was lost, and he gave 
himself up to his ov/n safety. He sought to betray France to the English, 
and would have succeeded if John Maillart, another burgher of Paris, had not 
put an end to his life July 31st, 1358. On the 2d of August the dauphin 
Charles re-entered Paris, accompanied by John Maillart. On being re-settled 
in the capital, he showed neither clemency nor cruelty. He let the reaction 
against Stephen Marcel run its course, and turned it to account without further 
excitino- it or prolonging it beyond measure. Marcel's widow even recovered 
a portion of his property ; and as early as the loth of August, ,1358, Charles 
published an amnesty, from which he excepted only " those who had been in 
the secret council of the provost of tradesmen in respect of the great trea- 
son ; and on the same day another amnesty quashed all proceeding for deeds 
done during the Jacqiiery, " whether by nobles or ignobles." Charles knew 
that in acts of rigor or of grace impartiality conduces to the strength and the 
reputation of authority. 

A reconciliation then took place between him and the king of Navarre, 
whose wife, Joan of France, was the dauphin's sister. " The town of 
Melun," says the chronicler, "was restored to the lord duke; the navi- 
gation of the river once more became free up stream and down; great 
was the satisfaction in Paris and throughout the whole country; and, 
peace being thus made, the two princes returned both of them home." 

The treaty of London and its rejection by the States-general, another 
invasion of France by Edward and his siege of Paris, the subsequent 
treaty and the release of King John, are all recorded in our history of 
England. The violation of the treaty upon which John had been released 
induced him to return to England. Shortly after his arrival in London 
he fell seriously ill, and died on the 8th of April, 1364, at the Savoy; 
France was at last about to have in Charles V. a practical and an 

effective king. 

In spite of the discretion he had displayed during his four years 
of reo-ency (from 1356 to 1360) his reign opened under the saddest 
auspices. In 1363, one of those contagious diseases, all at that time 



1377] FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 6 



called the plague, committed cruel ravages in France. King Charles V. 
had a very difficult Avork before him. Between himself and his great 
rival, Edward HI., king of England, there was only such a peace a: 
was fatal and hateful to France. To escape some day from the treaty 
of Bretigny and recover some of the provinces which had been lost by 
it — this was what king and country secretly desired and labored for. 
Pending a favorable opportunity for promoting this highest interest, war 
went on in Brittany between John of Montfort and Charles of Blois, 
who continued to be encouraged and patronized, covertly, one by the 
king of England, the other by the king of France. Almost immediately 
after the accession of Charles V. it broke out again between him and 
his brother-in-law Charles the Bad, king of Navarre, the former being 
profoundly mistrustful and the latter brazen-facedly perfidious, and both 
detesting one another and watching to seize the moment for taking- 
advantage one of the other. Charles V. had recourse three times, in 
July, 1367, and in May and December, 1369, to a convocation of the 
States-general, in order to be put in a position to meet the political 
and financial difficulties of France. It was his good fortune, besides, 
to find among his servants a man to be the thunderbolt of war and 
the glory of knighthood of his reign ; w^e mean Bertrand du Guesclin, 
a Breton gentleman, who had already distinguished himself on the field 
of battle. Having received the command of the royal troops, he inaugurated 
the new reign by the victory of Cocherel, when he defeated John de 
Grailly, capital of Buch, the best of the generals of the king of Navarre. 
Charles the Bad lost by this affair nearly all his possessions in Normandy 

Charles V., encouraged by his success, determined to take part like- 
wise in the war which was still going on between the two claimants to 
the duchy of Brittany, Charles of Blois and John of Montfort. Du Guesclin 
w^as sent to support Charles of Blois ; he entered at once on the campaign, 
and marched upon Auray, which was being besieged by the count of 
Montfort. The battle took place on the 29th of September, 1364, before 
Auray; Charles of Blois was killed and Du Guesclin was made prisoner. 
The cause of John of Montfort was clearly won ; and he, on taking possession 
of the duchy of Brittany, asked nothing better than to acknowledge 
himself vassal of the king of France and swear fidelity to him. The 
subsequent Spanish campaign, the death of the Black Prince and of his 
father, Edward HI., are recorded in the history of England. 

While England thus lost her two great chiefs France still kept hers. 
For three years longer Charles V. and Du Guesclin remained at the 
head of her government and her armies. A truce between the two king- 
doms had been twice concluded, between 1375 and 1377: it was still 
in force when the prince of Wales died, and Charles, ever careful to 
practice knightly courtesy, had a solemn funeral service performed for 
him. Having fallen sick before Chateauneuf-Randon, a place he was 
besieging in the Gevaudan, Du Guesclin expired on the 13th of July 



64 FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. [1380 

1380, at sixty-six years of age, and his last words were an exhortation 
to the veteran captains around him " never to forget that, in whatso- 
ever country they might be making war, churchmen, women, children, 
and the poor people were not their enemies." 

Two months after the constable's death, on the i6th of September, 
1380, Charles V. died at the castle of Beaute-sur-Marne, near Vincennes, 
at forty-three years of age, quite young still after so stormy and hard- 
working a life. His contemporaries were convinced, and he was himself 
convinced, that he had been poisoned by his perfidious enemy, King 
Charles of Navarre. 

Charles V., taking upon his shoulders at nineteen years of age, 
first as king's lieutenant and as dauphin and afterward as regent, the 
government of France, employed all his soul and his life in repairing the 
disasters arising from the wars of his predecessors and preventing any 
repetition. No sovereign was ever more resolutely pacific ; he carried 
prudence even into the very practice of war. Scarcely was Charles V. laid 
on his bier when it was seen what a loss he was and would be to his 
kingdom. Discord arose in the king's own family. In order to shorten 
the ever critical period of minority, Charles V. had fixed the king's 
majority at the age of fourteen. His son, Charles VI. was not yet 
twelve, and so had two years to remain under the guardianship of his 
four uncles, the dukes of Anjou, Berry, Burgundy, and Bourbon ; but 
the last, being only a maternal uncle and a less puissant prince than 
his paternal uncles it was between the other three that strife began 
for temporary possession of the kingly power. 

The city of Ghent in particular joined complaint with menace, and in 
1381 the quarrel became war; and in November of the following year 
the king of France and his army marched into Flanders in support of 
the count. Several towns, Cassel, Bergues, Gravelines, and Turnhout, 
hastily submitted to him ; and on the 28th of November the two armies 
found themselves close together at Rosebecque, between Ypres and Courtrai. 
The victory of Rosebecque was a great cause for satisfaction and 
pride to Charles VI. and his uncle, the duke of Burgundy. They had 
conquered on the field in Flanders the commonalty of Paris as well as 
that of Ghent ; and in France there was great need of such a success. 

Free at last from the surveillance of his uncles, Charles VI. married 
Isabel of Bavaria whose wantonness was destined to bring the kingdom 
to the verge of destruction. Now, yielding to the impetuous suggestions 
of his character, he prepared against England a gigantic armament, which the 
delays of the duke of Berry rendered useless. Matters were getting 
worse in France, when a serious misfortune came to destroy the already 
exhausted constitution of the king, and to give up the country to the 
unprincipled ambition of his uncles. On the 13th of June, 1392, the 
constable, Oliver de Clisson, was waylaid as he was returning home after 
a banquet given by the king at the hostel of St. Paul. The assassin 



1409] FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 65 

was Peter de Craon, cousin of John IV., duke of Brittany. He believed 
De Clisson to be dead, and left him bathed in blood at a baker's door 
in the street called Culture-Sainte-Catherine. While preparing a war against 
the duke of Brittany to discover the assassin who had hidden there 
the king was struck with madness. A fair young Burgundian, Odette 
de Champdivers, was the only one among his many favorites who was 
at all successful in soothing him during his violent fits. For thirty ycar.s 
from 1392 to 1422, the crown remained on the head of this poor madman, 
while France was a victim to the bloody quarrels of the royal house, 
to national dismemberment, to hcentiousness in morals, to civil anarchy, 
and to foreign conquest. 

The dukes of Burgundy and Berry being thus in possession of power 
excercised it for ten years, from 1392 to 1402, without any great dispute 
between themselves, the duke of Burgundy's influence being predominant, 
or with the king, who, save certain lucid intervals, took merely a nominal part 
in the government. During this period no event of importance disturbed 
France internally. In 1393 the king of England, Richard II., son of the 
Black Prince, sought in marriage the daughter of Charles VI., Isabel of 
France, only eight years old. The contract was signed on the 9th of 
March, 1396. (See History of England.) 

Rivalries, intrigues and scandals of every kind surrounded the court 
of the mad king. His wife, Isabel of Bavaria, was far too intimate 
with his brother, the duke of Orleans. In the very midst of a court 
crisis Philip the Bold suddenly died of illness April 27th, 1404. John 
the Fearless, count of Nevers, his son and successor, was a man of 
violence, unscrupulous and indiscrete, full of jealousy and hatred, and 
capable of any deed and risk for the gratification of his passions. At 
his accession he made some popular moves ; he appeared disposed to 
prosecute vigorously the war against England, which was going on slug- 
gishly ; he testified a certain spirit of conciliation by going to pay a visit 
to his cousin, the duke of Orleans, lying ill at his castle of Beaute, 
near Vincennes. When the duke of Orleans was well again, the two princes 
took the communion together and dined together at their uncle's, the 
duke of Berry's ; and the duke of Orleans invited the new duke of 
Burgundy to dine with him the next Sunday. The Parisians took pleasure in 
observing these little matters, and in hoping for the re-establishment of 
harmony in the royal family. They were soon to be cruelly undeceived. 

On the 23d of November, 1407, the duke of Orleans was murdered in the 
streets of Paris by rufifians hired for the purpose by the duke of Burgundy. 
who openly dared to justify the assassination. 

The duke of Burgundy's negotiations at Tours were not fruitless. The 
result was that on the 9th of March, 1409, a treaty was concluded and an 
interview effected at Chartres between the duke on one side, and on the other 
the king, the queen, the dauphin, all the royal family, the councillors of the 
crown, the young duke of Orleans, his brother, and a hundred knights of their 
B 



uo FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. [1410 

house, all met together to hear the king declare that he pardoned the duke of 
Burgundy. 

From 1410 to 141 5 France was a prey to civil war between the Armag- 
nacs and Burgundians, and to their alternate successes and reverses, brought 
about by the unscrupulous employment of the most odious and desperate 
means. The Burgundians had generally the advantage in the struggle, for 
Paris was chiefly the center of it, and their influence was predominant there. 
Their principal allies there, says the chronicle, were the butchers. Both 
parties were anxious to secure the support of the king of England. The 
Armagnacs had promised the half of France to Henry, and thus induced him 
to espouse their quarrel. The duke of Burgundy, however, and Charles H., 
whom he had in his power, declared them enemies of the State, and besieged 
them in the city of Bourges (141 2). There a peace was concluded, but proved 
of very short duration. The death of Henry of Lancaster, by lessening the 
immediate chances of a foreign war, rendered the conflict at home much more 
terrible. 

This time, and after the useless assembly of the States-general in 141 3, the 
Cabochians committed such excesses in Paris that the citizens came to an 
understanding to expel them. The Armagnacs immediately entered the 
metropolis, and not only maintained themselves there, but, commanded by 
Charles VI., pursued their enemies as far as Arras. A peace of short dura- 
tion followed and then the war with England was renewed, for which see the 
History of England. The battle of Agincourt was fought October 23d, 141 5. 
The Parisian population was becoming every day more Burgiindian. In 
the latter days of May, 141 8, a plot was contrived for opening to the Bur- 
p-undians one of the crates of Paris. Perrinet Leclerc, son of a rich iron mer- 

Id- o 

chant, having influence in the quarter of St. Germain des Pres, stole the keys 
from under the bolster of his father's bed ; a troop of Burgundian men-at- 
arms came in, and they were immediately joined by a troop of Parisians. 
They spread over the city, shouting, "Our Lady of Peace! Hurrah for the 
king ! Hurrah for Burgundy ! Let all who wish for peace take arms and . 
follow us ! " The people swarmed from the houses and followed them accord- 
ingly. The Armagnacs were surprised and seized with alarm. Tanneguy 
Duchatel, a man of prompt and resolute spirit, ran to the dauphin's, wrapped 
him in his bedclothes, and carried him off to the Bastile, where he shut him 
up with several of his partizans. 

Henry of England negotiated with both parties; but though Burgundy 
and the queen, having possession of the person of the afflicted sovereign, 
carried the appearance of legal authority, every Frenchman who paid any 
regard to the true interests of his country adhered to the dauphin. From 
the enmity of the contending factions a circumstance occurred which 
facilitated Henry's views more readily than he could possibly have antici- 
pated. A simulated reconciliation having taken place between the duke of 
Burgundy and the dauphin, an interview was appointed on the bridge of the 
town of Montereau. The duke of Burgundy came to this meeting against the 



1422] FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 67 

advice of his friends and was murdered by Tanneguy Duchatel, who told him 
that the time had come to expiate the murder of the duke of Orleans, which 
none of them had forgotten. This was on September loth, 1419. 

Henry V., king of England, as soon as he heard about the murder of 
D-uke John, set himself to work to derive from it all the advantages he anti- 
cipated. " A great loss," said he, " is the duke of Burgundy , he was a good and 
true knight and an honorable prince ; but through his death we are, by God's 
help, at the summit of our wishes. We shall thus, in spite of all Frenchmen, 
possess dame Catherine, whom we have so much desired." As early as the 
24th of September, 1419, Henry V, gave full powers to certain of his people 
to treat "with the illustrious city of Paris and the other towns in adherence 
to the said city." On the 17th of October was opened at Arras a congress 
between the plenipotentiaries of England and those of Burgundy. On the 
20th of November a special truce was granted to the Parisians, while Henry 
v., in concert with Duke Philip of Burgundy, was prosecuting the war against 
the dauphin. On the 2d of December the bases were laid of an agreement 
between the English and the Burgundians. The preliminaries of the treaty 
which was drawn up in accordance with these bases were signed on the 9th of 
April, 1420, by King Charles VI., and on the 20th communicated at Paris by the 
chancellor of France to the parliament and to all the religious and civil, royal 
and municipal authorities of the capital. After this communication, the 
chancellor and the premier president of parliament went with these prelimina- 
ries to Henry V. at Pontoise, whence he set out with a division of his army 
for Troyes, where the treaty, definitive and complete, was at last signed and 
promulgated in the cathedral of Troyes, on the 21st of May, 1420. 

Toward the end of August, 1422, Henry V. fell ill; and, too stout-hearted 
to delude himself as to his condition, he thought no longer of anything but 
preparing himself for death. He expired at Vincennes on the 31st of August, 
1422, at the age of thirty-four. A great soul and a great king; but a great 
example also of the boundless errors which may be fallen into by the greatest 
men when they pursue with arrogant confidence their own views, forgetting 
the laws of justice and the rights of other men. 

On the 22d of October, 1422, less than two months after the death of 
Henry V., Charles VI., king of France, died at Paris in the forty-third year of 
his reign. As soon as he had been buried at St. Denis, the duke of Bedford, 
regent of France according to the will of Henry V., caused a herald to pro- 
claim, " Long live Henry of Lancaster, king of England and of France ! " The 
people's voice ;nade very different proclamation. It had always been said 
that the public evils proceeded from the state of illness into which the 
unhappy King Charles had fallen. 

It was only when he knew that, on the 27th of October, the parliament 
of Paris had, not without some httle hesitation and ambiguity, recognized, 
" as king of England and France, Henry VI., son of Henry V. lately deceased," 
that the dauphin Charles assumed, on the 30th of October, in his castle of 



68 FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. [1428 

Mehun-sur-Yevre, the title of king and repaired to Bourges to inaugurate in 
the cathedral of that city his reign as Charles VH. 

Six years later, on the 6th of January, 1428, at Domremy, a little village 
in the valley of the Meuse, between Neufchateau and Vaucouleurs, on the 
edge of the frontier from Champagne to Lorraine, the young daughter of 
simple tillers of the soil, " of good life and repute, herself a good,, simple, 
gentle girl, no idler, occupied hitherto in sewing or spinning with her mother 
or driving afield her parent's sheep, and sometimes even, when her father's 
turn came round, keeping for him the whole flock of the commune," was 
fulfilling her sixteenth year. It was Joan of Arc, whom all her neighbors 
called Joannette. Her early childhood was passed amid the pursuits charac- 
teristic of a country life ; her behavior was irreproachable, and she was robust, 
active, and intrepid. Her imagination becoming inflamed by the distressed 
situation of France, she dreamed that she had interviews with St. Margaret, 
St. Catherine and St. Michael, who commanded her, in the name of God, to go 
and raise the siege of Orleans, and conduct Charles to be crowned at Reims. 
Accordingly she applied to Robert de Baudricourt, captain of the neighboring 
town of Vaucouleurs, revealing to him her inspiration, and conjuring him not 
to neglect the voice of God, which spoke through her. This officer for some 
time treated her with neglect ; but at length, prevailed on by repeated impor- 
tunities, he sent her to the king at Chinon, to whom, when introduced, she 
said : " Gentle dauphin, my name is Joan the Maid. The King of heaven hath 
sent me to your assistance. If you please to give me troops, by the grace of 
God and the force of arms, I will raise the siege of Orleans, and conduct you 
to be crowned at Reims, in spite of your enemies." Her requests were now 
granted : she was armed cap-a-pie, mounted on horseback, and provided with 
a suitable retinue. 

Joan's first undertaking was against Orleans, which she entered without 
opposition on the 29th of April, 1429, on horseback, completely armed, pre- 
ceded by her own banner, and having beside her Dunois, and behind her the 
captains of the garrison and several of the most distinguished burgesses of 
Orleans, who had gone out to meet her. The population, one and all, rushed 
thronging round her, carrying torches, and greeting her arrival "with joy as 
great as if they had seen God come down among them." With admira- 
ble good sense, discovering the superior merits of Dunois, the bastard of 
Orleans, a celebrated captain, she wisely adhered to his instructions, and by 
constantly harassing the English, and beating up their intrenchments in 
various desperate attacks, in all of which she displayed the most heroic 
courage, Joan in a few weeks compelled the earl of Suffolk and his army to 
raise the siege, having sustained the loss of six thousand men. The proposal 
of crowning Charles at Reims would formerly have appeared like madness, 
but the Maid of Orleans now insisted on its fulfillment. She accordingly 
recommenced the campaign on the loth of June ; to complete the deliverance 
of Orleans an attack was begun upon the neighboring places, Jargeau, Meung 
and Beaugency ; thousands of the late dispirited subjects of Charles now 



/ 



1430] FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 69 

flocked to his standard, many towns immediately declared for him, and the 
English, who had suffered in various actions — at that of Jargeau, when the earl 
of Suffolk was taken prisoner, and at that of Patay, when Sir John Fastolfe 
fled without striking a blow — seemed now to be totally dispirited. On the 
i6th of July King Charles entered Reims, and the ceremony of his corona- 
tion was fixed for the morrow. 

It was solemn and emotional, as are all old national traditions which 
recur after a forced suspension. Joan rode between Dunois and the 
archbishop of Reims, chancellor of France. The air resounded with 
the Te Dciun, sung with all their hearts by clergy and crowd. " In 
God's name," said Joan to Dunois, "here is a good people and a devout; 
when I die, I should much like it to be in these parts." " Joan," inquired 
Dunois, "know you when you will die and in what place?" "I know 
not," said she, " for I am at the will of God." Then she added, " I 
have accomplished that which my Lord commanded me, to raise the 
siege of Orleans and have the gentle king crowned. I would like it 
well if it should please Him to send me back to my father and mother, 
to keep their sheep and their cattle and do that which was my 
wont." " When the said lords," says the chronicler, an eye-Avitness, 
" heard these words of Joan, who, with eyes toward heaven, gave thanks 
to God, they the more believed that it was somewhat sent from God 
and not otherwise." 

Historians and even contemporaries have given much discussion to 
the question whether Joan of Arc, according to her first ideas, had 
really limited her design to the raising of the siege of Orleans and 
the coronation of Charles VII. at Reims. However that may be, 
when Orleans was relieved and Charles VII. crowned, the situation, posture, 
and, part of Joan underwent a change. She no longer manifested the 
same confidence in herself and her designs. She no longer excercised 
over those in whose midst she lived the same authority. She continued 
to carry on war, but at hap-hazard, sometimes with and sometimes without 
success, just like La Hire and Dunois ; never discouraged, never satisfied, 
and never looking upon herself as triumphant. After the coronation, her 
advice was to march at once upon Paris, in order to take up a fixed 
position in it, as being the political center of the realm of which Reims 
was the religious. Nothing of the sort was done. She threw herself 
into Compiegne, then besieged by the duke of Burgundy. The next day 
(May 25th, 1430), heading a sally upon the enemy, she v/as repulsed 
and compelled to retreat after exerting the utmost valor; when, having 
nearly reached the gate of the town, an English archer pursued her, 
and pulled her from her horse. The joy of the English at this capture 
was as great as if they had obtained a complete victory. Joan was 
committed to the care of John of Luxembourg, count of Ligny, from 
whom the duke of Bedford purchased the captive for ten thousand 
pounds, and a pension of three hundred pounds a year to the bastard 



70 FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. [1431 

of Vendome, to whom she surrendered. Joan was now conducted to 
Rouen, where, loaded with irons, she was thrown into a dungeon, preparatory 
to appear before a court assembled to judge her. 

The trial lasted from the 21st of February to the 30th of May, 143 1. 
The court held forty sittings, mostly in the chapel of the castle, some 
in Joan's very prison. On her arrival there, she had been put into an 
iron cage ; afterward she was kept " no longer in the cage, but in a dark 
room in a tower of the castle, wearing irons upon her feet, fastened 
by a chain to a large piece of wood, and guarded night and day by 
four or five soldiers of low grade." She complained of being thus chained ; 
but the bishop told her that her former attempts at escape demanded 
this precaution, " It is true,'' said Joan, as truthful as heroic, " I did 
wish and I still wish to escape from prison, as is the right of every 
prisoner." At her examination, the bishop required her to take " an 
oath to tell the truth about everything as to which she should be 
questioned." '' I know not what you mean to question me about. Perchance 
you may ask me things I would not tell you. Touching my revelations, 
for instance, you might ask me to tell something I have sworn not to 
tell ; thus I should be perjured, which you ought not to desire." The 
bishop insisted upon an oath absolute and without condition. "You are 
too hard on me," said Joan ; " I do not like to take an oath to tell 
the truth save as to matters which concern the faith." The bishop 
called upon her to swear on pain of being held guilty of the things 
imputed to her. " Go on to something else," said she. And this was 
the answer she made to all questions which seemed to her to be a 
violation of her right to be silent. Wearied and hurt at these imperious 
demands, she one day said, " I come on God's business, and I have 
naught to do here ; send me back to God from whom I come." " Are 
you sure you are in God's grace ? " asked the bishop. " If I be not," 
answered Joan, "please God to bring me to it; and if I be, please God 
to keep me in it ! " The bishop himself remained dumbfounded. 

There is no object in following through all its sittings and all its 
twistings this odious and shameful trial, in which the judges' prejudiced 
servility and scientific subtlety were employed for three months to wear 
out the courage or overreach the understanding of a young girl of nine- 
teen, who refused at one time to lie, and at another to enter into 
discussion with them, and made no defense beyond holding her tongue 
or appealing to God, who had spoken to her and dictated to her that 
which she had done. In the end she was condemned for all the crimes 
of which she had been accused, aggravated by that of heresy, and 
sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, to be fed during life on bread and 
water. The English were enraged that she was not condemned to death. 
" Wait but a little," said one of the judges, " we shall soon find the 
means to ensnare her." And this was effected by a grievous accusation, 
which, though somewhat countenanced by the Levitical law, has been 



1456] FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 71 

seldom urged in modern times — the wearing of man's attire. Joan had 
been charged with this offense, but she promised not to repeat it. A 
suit of man's apparel was designedly placed in her chamber, and .her 
own garments, as some authors say, being removed, she clothed herself 
in the forbidden garb, and her keepers surprising her in that dress, 
she was adjudged to death as a relapsed heretic, and was condemned to 
be burnt in the market-place at Rouen (143 1). 

Four centuries have rolled by since Joan of Arc, that modest and 
heroic servant of God, made a sacrifice of herself for France. For four 
and twenty years after her death, France and the king appeared to think 
no more of her. However, in 1455, remorse came upon Charles VH. and 
upon France. Nearly all the provinces, all the towns were freed from the 
foreigner; and shame was felt that nothing was said, nothing done for 
the young girl who had saved everything. At Rouen, especially, where 
the sacrifice was completed, a cry for reparation arose. It was timidly 
demanded from the spiritual power which had sentenced and delivered 
over Joan as a heretic to the stake. Pope Calixtus HI. entertained the 
request preferred, not by the king of France, but in the name of Isabel 
Romee, Joan's mother, and her whole family. Regular proceedings were 
commenced and followed up for the rehabilitation of the martyr ; and, 
on the 7th of July, 1456, a decree of the court assembled at Rouen 
quashed the sentence of 143 1, together with all its consequences, and 
ordered "a general procession and solemn sermon at St. Ouen Place and 
the Vieux-Marche, where the said maid had been cruelly and horribly 
burned ; besides the planting of a cross of honor {crucis honestcB) on the 
Vieux-Marche, the judges ordered the official notice to be given of their 
decision throughout the cities and notable places of the realm." 

After the execution of Joan the war resumed its course, and we again 
refer the reader to the History of England for a narrative of the events. 

On certain conditions the capitulation of Bordeaux was concluded 
and signed on the 17th of October, 1453; the English re-embarked and 
Charles, without entering Bordeaux, returned to Touraine. The English 
had no longer any possession in France but Calais and Guines. The 
Hundred Years' War was over. 

And to whom was the glory due ? 

Charles VII. himself decided the question. When in 1455, twenty-four 
years after the death of Joan of Arc, he at Rome and at Rouen prosecuted 
her claims for restoration of character and did for her fame and her memory 
all that was still possible, he was but relieving his conscience from a load of 
ingratitude and remorse, which in general weighs but lightly upon men, and 
especially upon kings. La Pucelle, first among all, had a right to the glory, 
for she had been the first to contribute to the success. 

Next to Joan of Arc the constable De Richemont was the most elTcctive 
and the most glorious among the liberators of France and of the king. He 
was a strict and stern warrior, unscrupulous and pitiless toward his enemies, 



72 FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. [1456 

severe in regard to himself, dignified in his manners, never guilty of swearing 
himself, and punishing swearing as a breach of discipline among the troops 
placed under his orders. Dunois, La Hire, Xaintrailles, and marshals De 
Boussac and De Lafayette were, under Charles VH., brilliant warriors and 
useful servants of the king and of France. 

Besides all these warriors we meet, under the sway of Charles VH., at 
first in a humble capacity and afterward at his court, in his diplomatic 
service and sometimes in his closest confidence, a man of quite a different 
origin and quite another profession, but one who, nevertheless, acquired by 
peaceful toil great riches and great influence ; we mean Jacques Coeur, born 
at Bourges at the close of the fourteenth century. This eminent man, after 
acquiring a large fortune by commercial transactions, rose to the post of 
argentier, or administrator of the royal exchequer. In this quality he was for 
twelve years associated with the most important government transactions, 
and he administered the finances with the greatest probity and uprightness. 

In whatever light it is regarded, the government of Charles VII. in the 
latter part of his reign brought him not only in France, but throughout 
Europe, a great deal of fame and power. When he had driven the English 
out of his kingdom he was called Charles the Victorious ; and when he had 
introduced into the internal regulations of the State so many important and 
effective reforms he was called Charles the Well-served. " The sense he had 
by nature," says his historian Chastellain, " had been increased to twice as 
much again in his straitened fortunes by long constraint and perilous dangers, 
which sharpened his wits perforce." " He is the king of kings," was said of 
him by the doge of Venice, Francis Foscari, a good judge of policy : " there 
is no doing without him.'' 

Nevertheless, at the close, so influential and so tranquil, of his reign, 
Charles VII. was in his individual and private life the most desolate, the most 
harassed, and the most unhappy man in his kingdom. The dauphin Louis, 
after having from his very youth behaved in a facetious, harebrained, turbulent 
way toward the king his father, had become at one time an open rebel, at 
another a venomous conspirator and a dangerous enemy. At his birth, in 
1423, he had been named Louis in remembrance of his ancestor St. Louis, and 
in hopes that he would resemble him. In 1440, at seventeen years of age, he 
allied himself with the great lords, who were displeased with the new 
military system established by Charles VII., and allowed himself to be drawn 
by them into the transient rebellion known by the name of Praguery. In 
1456, in order to escape from the perils brought upon him by the plots which 
'he in the heart of Dauphiny was incessantly hatching against his father, 
Louis fled from Grenoble and went to take refuge in Brussels v/ith the duke 
of Burgundy, Philip the Good, who willingly received him, at the same time 
excusing himself to Charles VII. " on the ground of the respect he owed to 
the son of his suzerain," and putting at the disposal of Louis, " his guest," a 
pension of thirty-six thousand livres. At Brussels the dauphin remained 
impassive, waiting with scandalous indifference for the news of his father's 



1465] 



FRANCE.— LOUIS XL 



7i 



death. Charles sank into a state of profound melancholy and general distrust. 
At last, deserted by them of his own household and disgusted with his own 
life, he died on the 22d of July, 1461. 



VI. 

LOUIS 11. JHAELES M-LOUIS III. 

(1461-1515.) 

ENTLEMEN," said Dunois, on rising from table at the 
funeral-banquet held at the abbey of St. Denis in honor 
of the obsequies of King Charles VIL, "we have lost 
our master; let each look after himself." The old 
warrior foresaw that the new reign would not be like that 
which had just ended. 

At the accession of Louis XL the feudal system was 
still powerful. Against this the king began a desperate Avarfare, 
and the first decrees which he published were as much the 
expression of his hatred, as of his determination to do away with 
every reminiscence of his father's government. Thoroughly 
irritated by these measures, and by others besides, such as that 
which deprived the duke of Burgundy of the lieutenancy of 
Normandy, which had first been bestowed upon him, the o-reat 
malcontents formed together, at the end of 1464, an alliance " for 
to remonstrate with the king," says Commynes, " upon the bad order and 
injustice he kept up in his kingdom, considering themselves strong enough to 
force him if he would not mend his ways ; and this war was called the covimon 
zveal, because it was undertaken under color of being for the common weal of 
the kingdom, the which was soon converted into private weal." The number 
of the declared malcontents increased rapidly ; and the chiefs received at 
Paris itself, in the church of Notre Dame, the adhesion and the signatures of 
those who wished to join them. Louis XL had no sooner obtained a clear 
insight into the league of the princes than he set to work with his usual 
activity and knowledge of the world to checkmate it. Between the League of 
the Common Weal and Louis XL there was a question too great to be, at the 
very outset, settled peacefully. At the beginning Louis had, in Auvergne 
and in Berry, some successes which decided a few of the rebels, the most 
insignificant, to accept truces and enter upon parleys : but the great princes, 
the dukes of Burgundy, Brittany, and Berry, waxed more and more angry. 

The two armies met at Montlhery, on the i6th of July, 1465. Breze, 
who commanded the king's advance guard, immediately went into action and 
was one of the first to be killed. Louis came up to his assistance with troops 
in rather loose order ; the affair became hot and general ; the French for a 




74 FRANCE.— LOUIS XL [1465 

moment wavered, but soon the wavering was transferred to the Burgundians, 
and the advantage virtually remained on the side of the French. 

Negotiations for peace speedily followed. Tv\^o distinct treaties were 
concluded : one at Conflans on the 5th of October, 1465, between Louis and 
the count of Charolais ; and the other at St. Maur on the 29th of October, 
between Louis and the other princes of the league. By one or the other of 
the treaties the king granted nearly every demand that had been made upon 
him. Scarcely were the treaties signed and the princes returned each to his own 
dominions when a quarrel arose between the duke of Brittany and the new 
duke of Normandy. Louis, having his movements free, suddenly entered 
Normandy to retake possession of it as a province which, notAvithstanding the 
cession of it just made to his brother, the king of France could not dispense 
with. Evreux, Gisors, Gournay, Louviers, and even Rouen fell, without 
much resistance, again into his power. 

In order to be safe in the direction of Burgundy as well as that of 
Brittany, Louis had entered into negotiations with Edward IV., king of 
England, and had made him offers, which seemed to trench upon the rights 
of the duke of Burgundy to certain districts of Picardy. 

Duke Philip the Good, who had for some time past been visibly declinin.g 
in body and mind, was visited at Bruges by a stroke of apoplexy, soon 
discovered to be fatal. A few days after his death several of the principal 
Flemish cities, Ghent first and then Liege, rose against the new duke of 
Burgundy in defense of their liberties, already ignored or threatened. The 
intrigues of Louis were not unconnected with these seditions. But the new 
duke of Burgundy was speedily triumphant over the Flemish insurrections, 
and after these successes, at the close of the year 1467, he was so powerful 
and so unfettered in his movement that Louis might with good reason fear 
the formation of a fresh league among his great neighbors in coalition 
against him. He summoned the States-general to a meeting at Tours on the 
1st of April, 1498, and obtained from them the annulment of the concessions 
he had made, more particularly with reference to Normandy, a province which 
was within so dangerous a proximity of England. 

Thus fortified Louis, by the treaty of Ancenis, signed on September 
lOth, 1468, put an end to his differences with Francis II., duke of Brittany, 
who gave up his alliance with the house of Burgundy, and undertook to 
prevail upon Duke Charles of France to accept an arbitration for the purpose 
of settling, before two years were over, the question of his territorial 
appanage in the place of Normandy. In the mean while a pension of sixty 
thousand livres was to be paid by the crown to that prince. Thus Louis was 
left with the new duke, Charles of Burgundy, as the only adversary he had to 
face. His advisers were divided as to the course to be taken with this 
formidable vassal. Accordingly he started for Noyon on the 2d of October, 
taking with him the constable, the cardinal, his confessor, and, for all his 
escort, four score of his faithful Scots and sixty men-at-arms. Duke Charles 
went to meet him outside the town ; they embraced one another and returned 



1475] FRANCE.— LOUIS XI. 75 

on foot to Pcronne, chatting familiarly, and the king with his hand resting on 
the duke's shoulder in token of amity. " King Louis, on coming to Peronne. 
had not considered that he had sent two ambassadors to the folks of Liege to 
excite them against the duke. The Liegese came and took by surprise the 
town of Tongres, wherein were the bishops of Liege and the lord of 
Humbercourt." The fugitives who reported this news at Peronne made the 
matter a great deal worse than it was ; they had no doubt, they said, but that 
the bishop and Sire d'Humbercourt had also been murdered ; and Charles had 
no more doubt about it than they. Exasperated by so glaring an act of 
treachery, Charles the Rash confined his sovereign within the tower Avhere 
Charles the Simple had died in 929, and there, through the happy mediation 
of Philip de Commynes, compelled him to sign the treaty of Peronne (146S). 
But the deliverance of Louis XI. and the new treaty which he had si"-ned 
were but temporary breaks in the struggle. 

Between 1468 and 1477, from the incident at Peronne to the death of 
Charles at the siege of Nancy, the history of the two princes was nothing but 
one constant alternation between ruptures and readjustments, hostilities and 
truces, wherein both were constantly changing their posture, their language, 
and their allies. In 1471 St. Ouentin opened its gates to Count Louis of St. 
Pol, constable of France. The next year (1472) war broke out. Duke 
Charles laid siege to Beauvais, and on the 27th of June delivered the first 
assault. The inhabitants were at this moment left almost alone to defend 
their town. A young girl of eighteen, Joan Fourquet, whom a burgher's wife 
of Beauvais, Madame Laisne, her mother by adoption, had bred up in the 
history, still so recent, of Joan of Arc, threw herself into the midst of the 
throng, holding up her little axe iJiacJicttc) before the image of St. Angadresme, 
patroness of the town, and crying, " O glorious virgin, come to my aid ; to 
arms! to arms ! " The assault was repulsed ; re-enforcements came up from 
Noyon, Amiens, and Paris, under the orders of the Marshal de Rouault. 
Charles remained for twelve days longer before the place, looking for a better 
chance ; but on the 12th of July he decided upon raising the siege, and took 
the road to Normandy. Some days before attacking Beauvais he had taken, 
not without difificulty, Nesle in the Vermandois. 

Between the two rivals in France, relations with England were a subject 
of constant maneuvering and strife. In spite of reverses on the Continent 
and civil wars in their own island the kings of England had not abandoned 
their claims to the crown of France ; they were still in possession of Calais ; 
and the memory of the battles of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt was still a 
tower of strength to them. 

The duke of Burgundy, as soon as he found out that the king of France 
had made peace for seven years with the king of England, saw that his 
attempts, so far, were a failure. Accordingly he lost no time in signing (on 
the 13th of September, 1475) a treaty with King Louis for nine years. 
Charles suddenly entered Lorraine, took possession of several castles, had the 
inhabitants who resisted hanged, besieged Nancy, which made a valiant 



76 FRANCE.— LOUIS XL [1476 

defense, and ended by conquering the capital as well as the country places, 
leaving Duke Rene no asylum but the court of Louis XL Scarcely two 
months after the capture of Nancy, Charles set out, on the nth of June, 1476, 
to avenge his client, prince of the house of Savoy, and wreak his haughty and 
turbulent humor upon these bold peasants of the Alps. 

In spite of the truce he had but lately concluded with Charles the Rash, 
the prudent Louis did not cease to keep an attentive watch upon him. A 
late occurrence had still further strengthened his position : his brother Charles, 
who became duke of Guienne, in 1469, after the treaty of Peronne, had died 
on the 24th of May, 1472. Louis was suspected of having poisoned his 
brother. At any rate this event had important results for him, for it restored 
to him the beautiful province of Guienne and many a royal client. Of the great 
feudal chieftains who, in 1464, had formed against him the League of the 
Common JVeal, the duke of Burgundy was the only one left on the scene and 
in a condition to put him in peril. 

The possessions of Charles consisted of the duchy and county of 
Bufgundy on the one side, and of the Netherlands on the other — feudal 
regime here, communal regime there. He wished to be a king, and with the 
hope of obtaining the creation of a kingdom of Belgian-Gaul he had courted 
the alliance of the Emperor Frederick III., promising to the Archduke 
Maximilian the hand of his daughter Mary. Nothing resulted from this 
scheme on account of the sudden death of the emperor. Charles the Rash, mad 
with fury, then turned against Germany and signed with Louis XL the peace 
of Soleure, which has been called Treve Marchande, on account of the 
stipulations it contained respecting the freedom of commerce between France, 
England, and the Netherlands. Charles started from Besancon on the 6th of 
February to take the field with an army of from thirty to forty thousand men, 
provided Avith a powerful artillery, and accompanied by an immense baggage- 
train. At the rumor of such an armament the Swiss attempted to keep off the 
war from their country. Charles, however, gave no heed, saw nothing in their 
representations but an additional reason for hurrying on his movements with 
confidence, and on the 19th of February arrived before Granson, a little town 
in the district of Vaud, where war had already begun. There he was 
tremendously beaten by the Swiss. During his two campaigns against them, 
the duke of Lorraine, Rene IL, whom he had despoiled of his dominions and 
driven from Nancy, had been wandering among neighboring princes and 
people in France, Germany, and Switzerland, at the courts of Louis XL and 
the Emperor Frederick III., on visits to the patricians of Berne and in the free 
towns of the Rhine. His partisans in Lorraine recovered confidence in his 
fortunes . the city of Strasbourg gave him some cannon, four hundred cavalry, 
and eight hundred infantry ; Louis XL lent him some money ; and Rene 
before long found himself in a position to raise a small army and retake the 
majority of the minor towns in Lorraine. Finally he attacked and defeated 
the Burgundians at Nancy on January the 5th, 1477. The duke was killed on 
the field of battle. Charles the Rash had left only a daughter, Mary of 



1475] FRANCE.— LOUIS XI. ;; 

Burgundy, sole heiress of all his dominions. On the i8th of August, 1477, 
seven months after the battle of Nancy and the death of Charles the Rash, 
Archduke Maximilian, son of the Emperor Frederick III., arrived at Ghent to 
wed Mary of Burgundy. Next day, August 19th, the marriage was celebrated 
with great simplicity in the chapel of the Hotel de Ville ; and Maximilian 
swore to respect the privileges of Ghent. A few days afterward he renewed 
the same oath at Bruges, in the midst of decorations bearing the modest 
device, " Most glorious prince, defend us lest we perish." Not only did Louis 
XI. thus fail in his first wise design of incorporating with France, by means of 
a marriage between his son the dauphin and Princess Mary, the heritage of 
the dukes of Burgundy, but he suffered the heiress and a great part of the 
heritage to pass into the hands of the son of the German emperor. In vain, 
when the marriage of Maximilian and Mary was completed, did Louis XI. 
attempt to struggle against his new and dangerous neighbor. His campaigns 
in the Flemish provinces, in 1478 and 1479, ^^-^ no great result ; he lost, on 
the 7th of August, 1479, the battle of Guinegate, and before long, tired of 
war, he ended by concluding with Maximilian a truce at first, and then a 
peace, which, in spite of some conditionals favorable to France, left the 
principal and the fatal consequences of the Austro-Burgundian marriage to 
take full effect. This event marked the stoppage of that great national 
policy which had prevailed during the first part of Louis XL's reign. That 
was as salutary as it was glorious for the nation and the French kingship. At 
the death of Charles the Rash the work was accomplished . Louis XL was 
the only power left in France, without any great peril from without and with, 
out any great rival within ; but he then fell under the sway of mistaken ideas 
and a vicious spirit. Not only did he hunt down implacably the men who, 
after having served him, had betrayed or deserted him ; he reveled in the 
vengeance he took and the sufferings he inflicted on them. Note, for instance, 
his treatment of Cardinal Balue, whom he caused to be confined in a cage 
" eight feet broad," says Commynes, " and only one foot higher than a man's 
stature, covered with iron plates outside and inside, and fitted with terrible 
bars." In it the unfortunate prelate passed eleven years, and it was not until 
1480 that he was let out at the solicitation of Pope Sixtus IV. 

He was still more pitiless toward Louis of Luxembourg, count of St. Pol, 
who had been from his youth up engaged in the wars and intrigues of the 
sovereigns and great feudal lords of Western Europe, France, England, 
Germany, Burgundy, Brittany and Lorraine. From 1433 to 1475 he served 
and betrayed them all in turn. Given up at last by the duke of Burgundy to 
the king he was beheaded on the 19th of December, 1475, in Paris, on the 
Place de Greve. 

It seemed as if Louis XI. ought to fear nothing now, and that the day 
for clemency had come. But such was not the king's opinion ; two cruel 
passions, suspicion and vengeance, had taken possession of his soul ; he had 
discovered traces and almost proofs of a design by the constable and his 
associates for seizing the king, keeping him prisoner, and setting his son, tlie 



78 FRANCE.— LOUIS XL [1477 

dauphin, on the throne, with a regency composed of a council of lords. 
Among the adherents of this project the king had found James d'Armagnac, 
duke of Nemours, the companion and friend of his youth, for his father, the 
count of Pardiac, had been governor to Louis, at that time dauphin. Arrested, 
sent to the Bastile, and tried on a charge of high treason, the Duke de 
Nemours was beheaded on the 4th of August, 1477. 

Louis XL rendered to France, four centuries ago, during a reign of 
twenty-two years, three great services. He prosecuted steadily the work of 
Joan of Arc and Charles VIL, the expulsion of a foreign kingship and the 
triumph of national independence and national dignity. By means of the 
provinces which he successively won, he caused France to make a great stride 
toward territorial unity within her natural boundaries. By the defeat he 
inflicted on the great vassals, the favor he showed the middle classes, and the 
use he had the sense to make of this new social force, he contributed power- 
fully to the formation of the French nation and to its unity under a national 
government. Louis XL proved the political weakness of feudal society, 
determined its fall, and labored to place in its stead France and monarchy. 
Herein are the great facts of his reign and the proofs of his superior mind. 

An unexpected event occurred at this time to give a little more heart to 
Louis XL Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Rash, died at Bruges 
on the 27th of March, 1482, leaving to her husband, Maximilian of Austria, a 
daughter, hardly three years of age. Princess Marguerite by name, heiress to 
the Burgundian-Flemish dominions which had not come into the possession 
of the king of France. Louis, as soon as he heard the news, conceived the 
idea and the hope of making up for the reverse he had experienced. He 
would arrange espousals between his son the dauphin, Charles, thirteen years 
old, and the infant princess left by Mary, and thus recover for the crown of 
France the beautiful domains he had allowed to slip from him. A negotia- 
tion was opened at once on the subject between Louis, Maximilian, and the 
estates of Flanders, and, on the 23d of December, 1482, it resulted in a treaty, 
concluded at Arras, which arranged for the marriage. In January, 1483, the 
ambassadors from the estates of Flanders and from Maximilian, who then, for 
the first time, assumed the title of archduke, came to France for the ratification 
of the treaty. 

On the 2d of June following, the infant princess. Marguerite of Austria, 
was brought by a solemn embassy to Paris first, and then, on the 23d of June, 
to Amboise, where her betrothal to the dauphin, Charles, was celebrated. 
Louis XL did not feel fit for removal to Amboise . and he would not even 
receive at Plessis-les-Tours the new Flemish embassy. Assuredly neither the 
king nor any of the actors in this regal scene foresaw that this marriage, which 
they with reason looked upon as a triumph of French policy, would never be 
consummated . that, at the request of the court of France, the pope would 
annul the betrothal ; and that, nine years after its celebration, in 1492, the 
Austrian princess, after having been brought up at Amboise under the 
guardianship of the duchess of Bourbon, Anne, eldest daughter of Louis XL, 



1483] FRANCE.— CHARLES VIII. 7^ 

would be sent back to her father, Emperor Maximilian, by her affianced. 
Charles VIII., then king of France, who preferred to become the husband of 
a French princess with a French province for a dowry, Anne, duchess of 
Brittany. 

It was in March, 1481, that Louis XL had his first attack of that apoplexy 
which, after several repeated strokes, reduced him to such a state of weakness 
that in June, 1483, he felt himself and declared himself not in a fit state to be 
present at his son's betrothal. Two months afterward, on the 25th of August, 
St. Louis' day, he had a fresh stroke, and lost all consciousness and speech. 

On Saturday, August 30th, 1483, between seven and eight in the evening, 
he expired, saying, ''Our Lady of Embrun, my good mistress, have pity upon 
me ; the mercies of the Lord will I sing forever {miscricordias Domini in 
(Btermun cantabo)." 

Louis XL had by the queen, his wife, Charlotte of Savoy, six children ; 
three of them survived him: Charles VIII. , his successor ; Anne, his eldest 
daughter, who had espoused Peter of Bourbon, sire of Beaujeu ; and Joan, 
whom he had married to the duke of Orleans, who became Louis XII. At 
their father's death Charles was thirteen, Anne twenty-two or twenty-three, 
and Joan nineteen. According to Charles V.'s decree, Avhich had fixed four- 
teen as the age for the king's majority, Charles VI 1 1., on his accession, was 
very nearly a major; but Louis XL, with good reason, considered him very 
far from capable of reigning as yet. On the other hand, he had a very high 
opinion of his daughter Anne, and it was to her far more than to Sire de 
Beaujeu, her husband, that six days before his death and by his last instruc- 
tions he entrusted the guardianship of his son, to whom he already gave the 
title of king, and the government of the realm. Louis XL had not been mis- 
taken in his choice ; there was none more fitted than his daughter Anne to 
continue his policy under the reign and in the name of his successor. 

She began by acts of intelligent discretion. She tried, not to subdue by 
force the rivals and malcontents, but to put them in the wrong in the eyes of 
the public and to cause embarrassment to themselves by treating them with 
fearless favor. Her brother-in-law, the duke of Bourbon, was vexed at being 
only in appearance and name the head of his own house ; and she made him 
constable of France and lieutenant-general of the kingdom. Two of Louis 
XL's subordinate and detested servants, Oliver le Daim and John Doyac, 
were prosecuted, and one was hanged and the other banished ; and his doc- 
tor, James Coettier, was condemned to disgorge fifty thousand crowns out of 
the enormous presents he had received from his patient. At the same time 
that she thus gave some satisfaction to the cravings of popular wrath, Anne 
de Beaujeu threw open the prisons, recalled exiles, forgave the people a 
quarter of the taUiage, cut down expenses by dismissing six thousand Swiss 
whom the late king had taken into his pay, re-established some sort of order 
in the administration of the domains of the crown, and, in fine, whether in 
general measures or in respect of persons, displayed impartiality without pay- 
ing court and firmness without using severity. 



8o FRANCE.— CHARLES VIII. [1484 

The States-general were convoked at Tours for the 5th of January, 1484. 
The deputies had all at heart one and the same idea ; they desired to turn the 
old and undisputed monarchy into a legalized and free government. 

Two men, one a Norman and the other a Burgundian, the canon John 
Masselin and Philip Pot, lord of la Roche, a former counselor of Philip the 
Good, duke of Burgundy, were the exponents of this political spirit, at once 
bold and prudent, conservative and reformative. 

When the States-general had separated, Anne de Beaujeu, without diffi- 
culty or uproar, resumed, as she had assumed on her father's death, the 
government of France ; and she kept it yet for seven years, from 1484 to 
149 1. During all this time she had a rival and foe in Louis, duke of Orleans, 
who was one day to be Louis XI I. This ambitious prince induced Fran- 
cois II., duke of Brittany, Richard III., king of England, Maximilian of 
Austria, and others, to take up arms against the regent. She vanquished 
Francois at Nantes, and sent to the gallows Landais, minister of that prince, 
and the original instigator of the league. In order to divert the attention of 
Richard ill., she gave her support to Henry Tudor, who ultimately gained 
the battle of Bosworth (1485) and ascended to the throne of England, under 
the title of Henry VII. To Maximilian she opposed with success the 
marshals d'Esquerdes and De Gie. The counts of Albret and of Comminges 
had espoused the cause of the duke of Orleans : they were defeated on their 
ov/n domains in the south of France. In July, 1488, Louis de la Tremoille 
came suddenly down upon Brittany, took one after the other Chateaubriant, 
Ancenis, and Fougeres, and on the 28th gained at St. Aubin-du-Cormier, near 
Rennes, over the army of the duke of Brittany and his English, German and 
Gascon allies, a victory which decided the campaign. 

It was a great success for Anne de Beaujeu. She had beaten her united 
foes. Two incidents that supervened, one a little before and the other a little 
after the battle of St. Aubin-du-Cormier, occurred to both embarrass the posi- 
tion, and at the same time call forth all the energy of Anne. Her brother-in- 
law, Duke John of Bourbon, the head of his house, died on the ist of April, 
1488, leaving to his younger brother, Peter, his title and domains. Charles 
Vlil., moreover, having nearly arrived at man's estate, made more frequent 
manifestations of his own personal will ; and Anne, clear-sighted and discreet, 
though ambitious, was little by little changing her dominion into influence. 
But some weeks after the battle of St. Aubin-du-Cormier, on the 7th or 9th of 
September, 1488, the death of Francis II., duke of Brittany, rendered the 
active intervention of the duchess of Bourbon natural and necessary, for he 
left his daughter, the Princess Anne, barely eighteen years old, exposed to all 
the difficulties attendant upon the government of her inheritance and to all the 
intrigues of the claimants to her hand. Madame de Beaujeu immedi- 
ately sent into Brittany a powerful army, and compelled the young 
heiress to bestow herself upon the suzerain, Charles VIII. On the 7th of 
February, 1492, Anne was crowned at St. Denis; and next day, the 8th 
of February, she made her entry in state into Paris amid the joyful and 



1495] FRANCE.— CHARLES VIII. 



8i 



earnest acclamations of the public. A sensible and a legitimate joy; for 
the reunion of Brittany to France was the consolidation of the peace which, 
in this same century, on the 17th of September, 1453, had put an end to the 
Hundred Years' War. 

Charles VIII. was pleased with and proud of himself. He had achieved 
a brilliant and a difficult marriage. In Europe and within his own household 
he had made a display of power and independence. In order to espouse 
Anne of Brittany he had sent back Marguerite of Austria to her father. He 
had gone in person and withdrawn from prison his cousin Louis of Orleans, 
whom his sister Anne de Beaujeu had put there ; and so far from having n-ot 
embroiled with her he saw all the royal family reconciled around him. This 
was no little success for a young prince of twenty-one. He thereupon 
devoted himself with ardor and confidence to his desire of winnin"- back the 
kingdom of Naples which Alphonso I., king of Aragon, had wrested from 
the house of France, and of thereby re-opening for himself in the East and- 
against Islamy that career of Christian glory which had made a saint of his 
ancestor Louis IX. By two treaties concluded in 1493 [one at Barcelona on 
the 19th of January and the other at Senlis on the 23d of May], he gave up 
Roussillon and Cerdagne to Ferdinand the Catholic, king of Arragon, and 
Franche-Comte, Artois and Charolais to the house of Austria, and, after 
having at such a lamentable price purchased freedom of movement, he went 
and took up his quarters at Lyons to prepare for his Neapolitan venture. 

It were out of place to follow out here in all its details a war which 
belongs to the history of Italy far more than to that of France. 

Six principal States, Piedmont, the kingdom of the dukes of Savoy, the 
duchy of Milan, the republic of Venice, the republic of Florence, Rome 
and the pope, and the kingdom of Naples, co-existed in Italy at the end ot 
the fifteenth century. In August, 1494, when Charles VIII. started from 
Lyons on his Italian expedition, Piedmont Avas governed by Blanche of Mont- 
ferrat, in the name of her son Charles John Amadeo, a child only six years 
old. In the duchy of Milan the power was in the hands of Ludovic Sforza. 
The republic of Venice had at this period for its doge Augustin Barbarigo ; 
and it was to the Council of Ten that in respect of foreign affairs as well as of 
the home department tl^e power really belonged. Peter de' Medici, son of 
Lorenzo de' Medici, tJie fatJicr of the Muses, governed the republic of 
Florence. Rome had for pope Alexander VI. (Roderigo Borgia), a prince 
who would be regarded as one of the most utterly demoralized men of the 
fifteenth century only that he had for son a Cresar Borgia. Finall}-, at 
Naples, in 1494, three months before the day on which Charles VIII. entered 
Italy, King Alphonso II. ascended the throne. Such, in Italy, whether in 
her kingdoms or her republics, were the heads with whom Charles VIII. had 
to deal when he went, in the name of a disputed right, three hundred leagues 
away from his own kingdom in quest of a bootless and ephemeral conquest. 

On the 1st of January, 1495, Charles VIII. entered Rome with his army : 
the pope having retired at first to the Vatican and afterward to the castle of 
6 



82 FRANCE.— CHARLES VIII. [i495 

St. Angelo. At last, on the 15th of January, a treaty was concluded which 
regulated pacific relations between the two sovereigns, and secured to the 
French army a free passage through the States of the Church, both going to 
Naples and also returning, and provisional possession of the town of Civita 
Vecchia, on condition that it should be restored to the pope Avhen the king 
returned to France ; and, on the 28th of January, Charles VIII. took solemn 
leave of the pope, received his blessing, and left Rome at the head of his 
army. 

There was the semblance of a fight at San-Germano, but the king of 
Naples, betrayed both by his army and by his subjects, was obliged to seek 
safety rn the island of Ischia, from whence he reached Sicily. Charles VIII. 
entered Naples on the 22d of February at the head of his troops. 

At the news hereof the disquietude and vexation of the principal Italian 
powers were displayed at Venice as well as at Milan and at Rome. On the 
31st of March, 1495, a league was concluded between Pope Alexander VI., 
Emperor Maximihan I., as king of the Romans, the king of Spain, the 
Venetians, and the duke of Milan : " To three ends," says Commynes: " for 
to defend Christendom against the Turks, for the defense of Italy, and for 
the preservation of their estates." Charles VIII. remained nearly two months 
at Naples after the Italian league had been concluded, and while it was 
making its preparations against him was solely concerned about enjoyment, in 
his beautiful but precarious kingdom. On the 12th of May, 1495, all the 
population of Naples and of the neighboring country was a-foot early to see 
their new king make his entry in state as king of Naples, Sicily and Jeritsaleni, 
with his Neapolitan court and his French troops ; and only a week afterward, 
on the 20th of May. 1495, Charles VIII. started from Naples to return to 
France with an arm)^ at the most from twelve to fifteen thousand strong, 
leaving for guardian of his new kingdom his cousin Gilbert of Bourbon, Count 
de Montpensier, with eight or ten thousand men, scattered for the most part 
throughout the provinces. 

He took more than six weeks to traverse it, passing three days at Rome, 
four at Siena, the same number at Pisa, and three at Lucca, though he had 
declared that he would not halt anywhere. It was in the duchy of Parma, 
near the town of Fornovo, on the right bank of the Taro, an afifiuent of the 
Po, that the French and Italian armies met, on the 5th of July, 1495. The 
French army was nine or ten thousand strong, with five or six thousand camp- 
followers, servants or drivers; the Italian army numbered at least thirty 
thousand men, well supplied and well rested, whereas the French were 
fatigued with their long march and very badly off for supplies. The battle 
was very hotly contested, but did not last long, with alternations of success 
and reverse on both sides. 

Both armies might and did claim the victory, for they had, each of them, 
partly succeeded in their design. The Italian allies were triumphant, but 
without any ground of security or any luster ; the expedition of Charles 



1499] FRANCE.— LOUIS XII. 83 

VIII. was plainly only the beginning of the foreigner's ambitious projects, 
invasions and wars against their own beautiful land. 

Charles VIII. reigned for nearly three years longer after his return to his 
kingdom, and for the first two of them he passed time in indolently dreamino- 
of his plans for a fresh invasion of Italy and in frivolous abandonment to his 
pleasures and the entertainments at his court, which he moved about from 
Lyons to Moulins, to Paris, to Tours and to Amboise. The news which came 
to him from Italy was worse and worse every day. While still constantly 
talking of the war he had in view, Charles attended more often and 
more earnestly than he hitherto had done to the internal affairs of 
his kingdom. At the beginning of the year 149S, Charles VIII. was 
at Amboise, where considerable works had been begun under his direction 
by several excellent artists whom he had brought from Naples. When 
passing one day through a dark gallery, he knocked his forehead against 
a door with such violence that he died a few hours afterward (April 7th, 
1498). He was only twenty-eight years old. With him the direct family 
of Valois became extinct, and was replaced by that of the Valois-Orleans. 

On ascending the throne Louis XII. reduced the public taxes and 
confirmed in their posts his predecessor's chief advisers, using to Louis de la 
Tremoille, who had been one of his most energetic foes, that celebrated 
expression, " The king of France avenges not the wrongs of the duke of 
Orleans." At the same time on the day of his coronation at Reims [May 
27th, 1492], he assumed, besides his title of king of France, the titles of king 
of Naples and of Jerusalem and diike of Milan. By his policy at home, 
Louis XII. deserved and obtained the name of FatJier of the People ; by his 
enterprises and wars abroad he involved France still more deeply than 
Charles VIII. had in that mad course of distant, reckless, and incoherent 
conquests, for which his successor, Francis I., was destined to pay by capture 
at Pavia and by the lamentable treaty of Madrid, in 1526, as the price of 
his release. 

Outside of France Milaness [the Milanese district] was Louis XII.'s first 
thought, at his accession, and the first object of his desire. When Charles 
VIII. invaded Italy in 1494, " Now is the time," said Louis, " to enforce the 
rights of Valentine Visconti, my grandmother, to Milaness." And he, in 
fact, asserted them openly, and proclaimed his intention of vindicating them 
so soon as he found the moment propitious. Accordingly, in the month of 
August, 1499, the French army, with a strength of from twenty to five and 
twenty thousand men, of whom five thousand were Swiss, invaded Milaness. 
On the 6th of October, 1499, Louis made his triumphal entry into Milan 
amid cries of " Hurrah for France ! " After instituting a number of 
reforms he recrossed the Alps at the end of some weeks, leaving as governor 
of Milaness John James Trivulzio, the valiant Condottierc, who, four years 
before, had quitted the service of Ferdinand IL, king of Naples, for that of 
Charles VIII. Unfortunately Trivulzio was himself a Milanese, and of the 
faction of the Guelphs. A plot was formed in favor of the fallen tyrant, who 



84 FRANCE.— LOUIS XII. [1500 

was in Germany expecting it, and was recruiting, during expectancy, among 
the Germans and Swiss in order to take advantage of it. On the 25th of 
January, 1500, the insurrection broke out; and two months later Ludovic 
Sforza had once more become master of Milaness, where the French 
possessed nothing but the castle of Milan. 

Louis XIL, so soon as he heard of the Milanese insurrection, sent into 
Italy Louis de la Tremoille, the best of his captains, and the cardinal 
d'Amboise, his privy councillor and his friend ; the former to command the 
royal troops, French and Swiss, and the latter " for to treat about the 
reconciliation of the rebel towns, and to deal with everything as if it were the 
king in his own person." The campaign did not last long. The Swiss who 
had been recruited by Ludovic and those who were in Louis XII.'s service had 
no mind to fight one another, and the former capitulated, and surrendered the 
strong place of Novara. Betrayed into the hands of the enemy, Ludovic was 
sent to France, where he expired fourteen years after, a prisoner in the castle 
of Loches. The duchy of Milan then submitted to Louis XIL, and this 
prince made immediate preparations for attacking Naples. With this view he 
signed with Ferdinand the Catholic the secret treaty of Granada (November 
nth, 1500). 

On hearing of the approach of the French, the new king, Frederic, 
requested the Spaniards to defend him, and gave over to them his fortresses : 
this was surrendering to the enemy. Gonzalvo of Cordova, one of the most 
celebrated chieftains of the day, attempted to defend Barletta. The French 
suffered, in consequence, two defeats (Seminara, Cerignola), and lost nearly all 
their possessions in the kingdom of Naples (1503). 

Louis XII. hastened to levy and send to Italy, under the command of 
Louis de la Tremoille, a fresh army, for the purpose of relieving Gaeta and 
recovering Naples ; but at Parma La Tremoille fell ill, and the command 
devolved upon the marquis of Mantua, who marched on Gaeta. He found 
Gonzalvo of Cordova posted with his army on the left bank of the Garigliano, 
either to invest the place or to repulse re-enforcements that might arrive 
for it. The two armies passed fifty days face to face almost, with the river 
and its marshes between them, and vainly attempting over and over again to 
join battle. At length the French were defeated, and Gaeta fell into the 
hands of the Spaniards on the ist of January, 1504. 

At the news of these reverses the grief and irritation of Louis XII. were 
extreme. Not only was he losing his Neapolitan conquest, but even his 
Milanese was also threatened. The ill-will of the Venetians became manifest. 
Pope Alexander VI., who, willy nilly, had rendered Louis XII. so many 
services, died at Rome on the 12th of August, 1503. A four-weeks' pope, 
Pius III., succeeded him ; and when the Holy See suddenly became once 
more vacant, the new choice was Cardinal Julian della Rovera, Pope Julius 
XL, who soon became the most determined and most dangerous foe of Louis 
XIL, already assailed by so many enemies. 

In order to put off the struggle which had succeeded so ill for him in the 



1509] FRANCE.— LOUIS XII. 85 

kingdom of Naples, Louis concluded, on the 31st of March, 1504, a truce for 
three years with the king of Spain ; and on the 22d of September, in the 
same year, in order to satisfy his grudge on account of the Venetians' 
demeanor toward him, he made an alliance against them with Emperor 
Maximilian L and Pope Julius IL, with the design, all three of them, of 
wresting certain provinces from them. Louis repented of having in 1501, 
under the influence of his wife, Anne of Brittany, affianced his daughter 
Claude to Prince Charles of Austria, and of the enormous concessions he had 
made by two treaties, one of April 5th, 1503, and the other of September 22d, 
1504, for the sake of this marriage. The latter of these treaties contained 
even the following strange clause : " If, by default of the Most Christian 
king or of the queen his wife, or of the Princess Claude, the aforesaid 
marriage should not take place, the Most Christian king doth will and con- 
sent, from now, that the said duchies of Burgundy and Milan and the count- 
ship of Asti, do remain settled upon the said Prince Charles, duke of Luxem- 
bourg, with all the rights therein possessed or possibly to be possessed by the 
Most Christian king." 

The States-general were convoked and met at Tours (1506) for the pur- 
pose of deliberating upon so important a step : the nation protested, through 
the voice of George d'Amboise, against the political arrangements made by 
Anne of Brittany, and the king seized the earliest opportunity of annulling 
by force what he would never have consented to, had the suggestion been 
offered to him while he was in the enjoyment of his usual health. 

From 1506 to 1515, between Louis XII.'s will and his death, we find in 
the history of his career in Italy five coalitions and as many great battles of a 
profoundly contradictory character. In 1508, Pope Julius II., Louis XII., 
Emperor Maximilian and Ferdinand the Catholic, king of Spain, form 
together against the Venetians the League of Cambrai. In 15 10 Julius II. , 
Ferdinand, the Venetians, and the Svv'iss make a coalition against Louis XII. 
In 1 5 12, this coalition, decomposed for awhile, reunites under the name of 
the League of the Holy Union, between the pope, the Venetians, the Swiss, 
and the kings of Aragon and Naples against Louis II., niiniis the Emperor 
Maximilian and phis Henry VIII., king of England. On the 14th of May, 

1509, Louis XII., in the name of the League of Cambrai, gains the battle of 
Agnadello against the Venetians. On the nth of April, 15 12, it is against 
Pope Julius II. , Ferdinand the Catholic, and the Venetians that he gains the 
battle of Ravenna. On the 14th of March, 1513, he is in alliance with the 
Venetians, and it is against the Swiss that he loses the battle of Novara. In 

1 5 10, 151 1 and 1 5 12, in the course of all these incessant changes of political 
allies and adversaries, three councils met at Tours, at Pisa, and at St. John 
Lateran, with views still more discordant and irreconcilable than those of all 
these laic coalitions. 

On the 14th of May, 1509, the French and the Venetians encountered near 
the village of Agnadello, in the province of Lodi, on the banks of the Adda. 
Louis XII. commanded his army in person: the Venetians were under the 



86 FRANCE.— LOUIS XII. [1509 

orders of two generals, the count of Petigliano and Barthelemy d'Alviano, both 
members of the Roman family of the Orsini, but not on good terms with one 
another. The great blow fell upon the Venetians' infantry, which lost, accord- 
ing to some, eight thousand men. The territorial results of the victory were 
greater than the numerical losses of the armies. Within a fortnight the towns 
of Caravaggio, Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, Cremona and Pizzighitone surren- 
dered to the French. Peschiera alone, a strong fortress at the southern 
extremity of the Lake of Garda, resisted and was carried by assault. 

Louis XII. committed the mistake of embroiling himself with the Swiss 
by refusing to add 20,000 livres to the pay of 60,000 he was giving them 
already, and by styling them " wretched mountain-shepherds, who presumed 
to impose upon him a tax he was not disposed to submit to," In October, 
151 1, a league was formally concluded between the pope, the Venetians, the 
Swiss and King Ferdinand against Louis XII. The coalition thus formed 
was called the League of Holy Union. "I," said Louis XII., "am the Sara- 
cen against whom this league is directed." 

He had just lost, a few months previously, the intimate and faithful 
adviser and friend of his whole life ; Cardinal George d'Amboise, seized at 
Milan with a fit of the gout, during which Louis tended him with the assidu- 
ity and care of an affectionate brother, died at Lyons on the 25th of May, 
1 5 10, at fifty years of age. He was one, not of the greatest, but of the most 
honest ministers who ever enjoyed a powerful monarch's constant favor, and 
employed it, we will not say with complete disinterestedness, but with a 
predominant anxiety for the public weal. 

"At last, then, I am the only pope ! " cried Julius II., when he heard 
that Cardinal d'Amboise was dead. But his joy was misplaced. War was 
rekindled, or, to speak more correctly, resumed its course after the cardinal's 
death. Julius 11. plunged into it in person, moving to every point where it 
was going on, living in the midst of camps, himself in military costume, 
besieging towns, having his guns pointed and assaults delivered under his own 
eyes. It was said that he had cast into the Tiber the keys of St. Peter to 
gird on the sword of St. Paul. His answer to everything was, " The barbari- 
ans must be driven from Italy." Louis XII. became more and more irritated 
and undecided. 

From 1 5 10 to 15 12 the war in Italy was thus proceeding, but with no 
great results, when Gaston de Foix, duke of Nemours, came to take the 
command of the French army. He was scarcely twenty-three, and had hith- 
erto only served under Trivulzio and La Palisse ; but he had already a char- 
acter for bravery and intelligence in war. Louis XII. loved this son of his 
sister Mary of Orleans, and gladly elevated him to the highest rank. Gaston, 
from the very first, justified this favor. Instead of seeking for glory in the 
field only, he began by shutting himself up in Milan, which the Swiss were 
besieging. They raised the siege and returned to their own country. The 
pope was besieging Bologna; Gaston arrived there suddenly with a body of 
troops whom he had marched out at night through a tempest of wind and 



1513] FRANCE.— LOUIS XII. Zy 

snow, and he was safe inside the place while the besiegers were still ignorant 
of his movement. The siege of Bologna was raised. Gaston left it immcdi. 
ately to march on Brescia, v/hich the Venetians had taken possession of for 
the Holy League. He retook the town by a vigorous assault, gave it up to 
pillage, punished with death Count Louis Avogaro and his two sons, and gave 
a beating to the Venetian army before its walls. All these successes had been 
gained in a fortnight. 

Finally a decisive battle was fought at Ravenna (April nth), which cost 
the life of the heroic French commander. When the fatal news was known 
the consternation and grief were profound. At the age of twenty-three 
Gaston de Foix had, in less than six months, won the confidence and affection 
of the army, of the king, and of France. It was one of those sudden and 
undisputed reputations which seem to mark out men for the highest destinies. 
After this Julius II. won back all he had won and lost. Maximilian Sforza, son 
of Ludovicthe J:f(?^r, after twelve years of exile in Germany, returned to Milan 
to resume possession of his father's duchy. By the end of June, 15 12, less 
than three months after the victory of Ravenna, the domination of the French 
had disappeared from Italy. 

In 1 5 12 Ferdinand invaded Navarre, took possession of the Spanish 
portion of that little kingdom, and thence threatened Gascony. Henry VIII. , 
king of England, sent him a fleet which did not withdraw until after it had 
appeared before Bayonne and thrown the south-west of France into a state of 
alarm. In the north Henry VIII. continued his preparations for an expedi- 
tion into France, obtained from his parliament subsidies for that purpose, and 
concerted plans with Emperor Maximilian, who renounced his doubtful 
neutrality, and engaged himself at last in the Holy League. Louis XII. had 
in Germany an enemy as zealous almost as Julius II. was in Italy: Maxi- 
milian's daughter, Princess Marguerite of Austria, had never forgiven France 
or its king, whether he were called Charles VIII. or Louis XII., the treatment 
she had received from that court when, after having been kept there and 
brought up for eight years to become queen of France, she had been sent 
away, and handed back to her father, to make way for Anne of Brittany. 
The Swiss, on their side, became more and more pronounced against him, and 
haughtily styled themselves "■ vanquishers of kings and defenders of the holy 
Roman Church." And the Roman Church made a good defender of herself. 
Everywhere things were turning out according to the wishes and for the 
profit of the pope ; and France and her king were reduced to defending them- 
selves on their own soil against a coalition of all their great neighbors. 

On the 2 1 St of February, 15 13, ten months since Gaston de Foix, the 
victor of Ravenna, had perished in the hour of his victory. Pope Julius II. 
died at Rome at the very moment when he seemed invited to enjoy all the 
triumph of his policy. He died without bluster and without disquietude, 
disavowing naught of his past life and relinquishing none of his designs as to 
the future. The death of Julius II. seemed to Louis XII. a favorable oppor- 
tunity for once more setting foot in Italy, and recovering at least that which 



SS . FRANCE.— LOUIS XII. [1413 

he regarded as his hereditary right,, the duchy of Milan. He commissioned 
Louis de la Trcmoille to go and renew the conquest. He had little difficulty 
in coming to an understanding with the Venetian senate ; and, on the 14th of 
May, 15 13, a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, was signed at Blois 
between the king of France and the republic of Venice. Louis hoped also to 
find at Rome in the new pope, Leo X, [Cardinal John de' Medici, elected 
pope March nth, 1513], favorable inclinations; but they were at first very 
ambiguously and reservedly manifested. Louis had not and could not have 
any confidence in Ferdinand the Catholic ; but he knew him to be as prudent 
as he was rascally, and he concluded with him at Orthez, on the ist of April, 
15 13, a year's truce, which Ferdinand took great care not to make known to 
his allies, Henry VIII., king of England, and the Emperor Maximilian. 
Conquerors at Novara, the Swiss drove the French from the duchy of Milan, 
which La Tremoille had reconquered ; in Burgundy they besieged Dijon ; in 
the north the combined troops of Maximilian and Flenry VIII. of England 
gained the battle of Guinegate. The truce of Orleans, followed by the treaty 
of Lo'ndon, put'a stop to these disasters, and the Italian question remained 
still undecided. 

When we consider this reign from this new point of view we are at 
once struck by two facts: ist, the great number of legislative and 
administrative acts that we meet with, bearing upon the general interests of 
the country, interests political, judicial, financial, and commercial ; the Recueil 
des Ordonnances dcs Rots de France contains forty-three important acts of this 
sort owing their origin to Louis XII.; it was clearly a government full of 
watchfulness, activity, and attention to good order and the public weal ; 2d, 
the profound remembrance remaining in succeeding ages of this reign and its 
deserts. 

Foreigners were not less impressed than the French themselves with the 
advance in order, activity, and prosperity which had taken place among the 
French community. Macchiavelli admits it, and, with the melancholy of an 
Italian politician acting in the midst of rivalries among the Italian republics, 
he attributes it above all to French unity, superior to that of any other State 
in Europe. 

Louis XII. 's private life also contributed to win for him, we will not say 
the respect and admiration, but the good-will of the public. Louis XII. was 
thrice married. His first wife, Joan, daughter of Louis XL, was an excellent 
and worthy princess, but ugly, ungraceful, and hump-backed. He had been 
almost forced to marry her, and he had no child by her. Louis married in 
1499 his predecessor's widow, Anne, duchess of Brittany, twenty-three years 
of age, short, pretty, a little lame, witty, able, and firm. It was, on both 
sides, a marriage of policy. After a union of fifteen years, Anne of Brittany 
died on the 9th of January, 15 14, at the castle of Blois, nearly thirty-seven 
years old. Louis was then fifty-two. He seemed very much to regret his 
wife : but, some few months after her death, another marriage of policy was 
put, on his behalf, in course of negotiation. It was in connection with 



I5I5] 



FRANCE.— THE RENAISSANCE. 



89 



Princess Mary of England, sister of Henry VHL, on the 13th of August the 
Duke de Longueville, in his sovereign's name, espoused the Princess Mary at 
Greenwich ; and she, escorted to France by a brilHant embassy, arrived on the 
8th of October at Abbeville, where Louis XH. was awaiting her. Mary 
Tudor had given up the German prince, who was destined to become Charles 
v., but not the handsome English nobleman she loved. The duke of Suffolk 
went to France to see her after her marriage, and in her train she had as maid 
of honor a young girl, a beauty as well, who was one day to be queen of 
England — Anne Boleyn. 

Less than three months after this marriage, on the 1st of January, 15 15, 
" the death-bell-men were traversing the streets of Paris, ringing their bells 
and crying, ' The good King Louis, father of the people, is dead.' " Louis 
Xn., in fact, had died that very day at midnight, from an attack of gout and 
a rapid decline. 

He died sorrowing over the concessions he had made from a patriotic 
sense of duty as much as from necessity, and full of disquietude about the 
future. 

vn. 

The Remissance and The Eeformation. 



11. 



(1515-1559.) 




RANCIS L, his government and his times, commence 
the era of modern France, and bring* clearly to view the 
causes of her greatnesses and her weaknesses. When, 
on the ist of January, 15 15, he ascended the throne 
before he had attained his one and twentieth year, it 
was a brilliant and brave but spoilt child that became 
T^^ king. He had been under the governance of Artus 
"'*^ GoufRer, Sire de Boisy, a nobleman of Poitou, who had 
exerted himself to make his royal pupil a loyal knight well 
trained in the moral code and all the graces of knighthood, but 
without drawing his attention to more serious studies or preparing 
him for the task of government. The young Francis d'Angouleme 
lived and was molded under the influence of two women, his 
mother, Louise of Savoy, and his eldest sister, Marguerite, who both 
of them loved and adored him with passionate idolatry. The 
former princess gave her son neither moral principles nor a moral example. 
Of quite another sort were the character and sentiments of Marguerite de 
Valois. She was born on the nth of April, 1492, and was, therefore, only 
two years older than her brother Francis ; but her more delicate nature was 
• sooner and more richly cultivated and developed. She was brought up " with 



90 FRANCE.— THE RENAISSANCE. [1515 

strictness by a most excellent and most venerable dame, in whom all the 
virtues, at rivalry one with another, existed together." Marguerite learnt 
Latin, Greek, philosophy, and especially theology. Intellectual pursuits, 
however, were far from absorbing the whole of this young soul. " She," says 
a contemporary, " had an agreeable voice of touching tone which roused the 
tender inclinations that there are in the heart." Tenderness, a passionate 
tenderness, very early assumed the chief place in Marguerite's soul, and the 
first object of it was her brother Francis. 

The first acts of his government were sensible and of good omen. He 
confirmed or renewed the treaties or truces which Louis XII., at the close of 
his reign, had concluded with the Venetians, the Swiss, the pope, the king of 
England, and Archduke Charles and the Emperor Maximilian, in order to 
restore peace to his kingdom. At home Francis I. maintained at his council 
the principal and most tried servants of. his predecessor, among others the 
finance-minister, Florimond Robertet ; and he raised to four the number of 
the marshals of France, in order to confer that dignity on Bayard's valiant 
friend, James of Chabannes, lord of La Palice, who even under Louis XII. had 
been entitled by the Spaniards " the great marshal of France." At the same 
time he exalted to the highest offices in the State two new men, Charles, 
duke of Bourbon, who was still a mere youth but already a warrior of renown, 
and Anthony Duprat, the able premier president of the parliament of Paris ; 
the former he made constable, and the latter chancellor of France. 

These measures, together with the language and the behavior of Francis 
I. and the care he took to conciliate all who approached him, made a 
favorable impression on France and on Europe. The aged king of Spain, 
Ferdinand the Catholic, adopting the views of his able minister. Cardinal 
Ximenes, alone showed distrust and anxiety. It was announced at Rome 
that Francis I., having arrived at Lyons in July, 15 15, had just committed to 
his mother Louise the regency of the kingdom, and was pushing forward 
toward the Alps an army of sixty thousand men and a powerful artillery. It 
was clear that Francis I., though he had been but six months king, was 
resolved and impatient to resume in Italy, and first of all in Milanese, the war 
of invasion and conquest which had been engaged in by Charles VIII. and 
Louis XII. : and the league of all the States of Italy, save Venice and Genoa, 
with the pope for their half-hearted patron and the Swiss for their fighting 
men, were collecting their forces to repel the invader. 

On the 13th of September, 1515, the French encountered and defeated 
the Swiss at Melegnano, a town about three leagues from Milan ; this victory 
was the most brilliant day in the annals of this reign. The effect of the 
battle was great, in Italy primarily, but also throughout Europe. It was, at 
the commencement of a new reign and under the impulse communicated by a 
young king, an event which seemed to be decisive and likely to remain so for 
a long while. On the 14th of September, the day after the battle, the Swiss 
took the road back to their mountains. Francis I. entered Milan in triumph. 
Maximilian Sforza took refuge in the castle, and twenty days afterward, on 



I5i6] FRANCE.— THE RENAISSANCE. 91 

the 4th of October, surrendered. Fifteen years afterward, in June, 1530, he 
died in oblivion at Paris. Francis I. regained possession of all Milaness, 
adding thereto, with the pope's consent, the duchies of Parma and Piacenza, 
which had been detached from it in 15 12. Two treaties, one of November 
7th, 1515, and the other of November 29th, 1516, re-established not only peace 
but perpetual alliance between the king of France and the thirteen Swiss 
cantons, with stipulated conditions in detail. The pope guaranteed to 
France I. the duchy of Milan, restored to him those of Parma and Piacenza, and 
recalled his troops Avhich were still serving against the Venetians ; Francis I., 
on his side, guaranteed to the pope all the possessions of the Church, 
renounced the patronage of the petty princes of the ecclesiastical estate, and 
promised to uphold the family of Medici. 

In the course of an interview they had at Bologna, Leo X. obtained of 
Francis an agreement w^hich abolished the Pragmatic Sanction. Thus 
supported by the Holy See and by the Venetians, the king of France saw the 
road to Naples once more opened before his troops. The treaty of Noyon 
gave, during a short time, repose to Europe, and allowed the two rivals 
leisure for the preparing of a far more terrible war. Francis I. returned to 
Milan, leaving at Bologna, for the purpose of treating in detail the affair of 
the Pragmatic Sanction, his chancellor, Duprat, who had accompanied him 
during all his campaign as his adviser and negotiator. The Parliament of 
Paris was in its turn attacked, and Duprat having resolved to strike a great 
blow, an edict of January 31st, 1522, created within the parliament a fourth 
chamber, composed of eighteen councillors and two presidents, all of fresh and, 
no doubt, venal appointment, though the edict dared not avow as much. 
Francis I. could not have committed the negotiation with Leo X. in respect of 
Charles VII. 's Pragmatic Sanction to a man with more inclination and better 
adapted for the work to be accomplished. 

The Pragmatic Sanction had three principal objects : — 

1. To uphold the liberties and the influence of the faithful in the 
government of the Church, by sanctioning their right to elect ministers of the 
Christian faith, especially parish priests and bishops. 

2. To guarantee the liberties and rights of the Church herself in her 
relations with her head, the pope, by proclaiming the necessity for the 
regular intervention of councils and their superiority in regard to the pope. 

3. To prevent or reform abuses in the relations of the papacy with the 
State and Church of France in the matter of ecclesiastical tribute, especially 
as to the receipt by the pope, under the name of annates, of the first year's 
revenue of the different ecclesiastical offices and benefices. 

The popes had all of them protested, since the days of Charles VII., 
against the Pragmatic Sanction as an attack upon their rights, and had 
demanded its abolition. The pope proposed that the Pragmatic, once for all 
abolished, should be replaced by a Concordat between the two sovereigns, and 
that this Concordat, while putting a stop to the election of the clergy by the 
faithful, should transfer to the king the right of nomination to bishoprics and 



92 FRANCE.— THE RENAISSANCE. [1516 

other great ecclesiastical offices and benefices, reserving to the pope the 
right of presentation of prelates nominated by the king. 

Francis I. and his chancellor saw in the proposed Concordat nothing but 
the great increment of influence it secured to them, by making all the 
dignitaries of the Church suppliants, at first, and then clients of the kingship. 
After some difficulties as to points of detail, the Concordat was concluded and 
signed on the i8th of August, 15 16. Seven months afterward it was 
registered, notwithstanding the opposition of the parliament and the university 
of Paris. The Concordat of 15 16 was not the only, but it was the gravest pact 
of alliance concluded between the papacy and the French kingship for the 
promotion mutually of absolute power. 

The death of Maximilian and the election of a new emperor were the 
proximate causes of the renewal of hostilities between Francis I. and Charles V. ; 
both these princes were candidates and by bestowing the imperial crown 
upon the latter, there is no doubt that the electors adopted the safest course ; 
but in doing so they gave the signal for a struggle of the most desperate and 
protracted character. 

Whatever pains were taken by Francis I. to keep up a good appearance 
after this heavy reverse, his mortification was profound and he thought of 
nothing but getting his revenge. He flattered himself he would find some- 
thing of the sort in a solemn interview and an appearance of alliance with 
Henry VHL, king of England, who had, like himself, just undergone in the 
election to the empire a less flagrant but an analogous reverse. It had 
already, in the previous year and on the occasion of a treaty concluded 
between the two kings for the restitution of Tournai to France, been settled 
that they should meet before long in token of reconciliation. The interview 
took place on the 31st of May, 1520, and is fully described in English history. 
A trial was made of Henry VIII. 's mediation and of a conference at Calais ; 
and a discussion was raised touching the legitimate nature of the protection 
afforded by the two rival sovereigns to their petty allies. But the real fact 
was that Francis I. had a reverse to make up for and a passion to gratify ; 
and the struggle recommenced in April, 1521, in the Low Countries. The 
campaign opened in the north, to the advantage of France, by the capture of 
Hesdin; Admiral Bonnivet, who had the command on the frontier of Spain, 
reduced some small forts of Biscay and the fortress of Fontarabia; and 
Marshal de Lautrec, governor of Milaness, had orders to set out at once to go 
and defend it against the Spaniards and Imperialists who were concentrating 
for its invasion. 

Lautrec was but little adapted for this Important commission, and did not 
succeed in preventing Milan from falling into the hands of the Imperialists, 
and, after an uncertain campaign of some months' duration, he lost at La 
Bicocca, near Monza, on the 27th of April, 1522, a battle, which left in the 
power of Francis I., in Lombardy, only the citadels of Milan, Cremona, and 
Novara. The funds for the payment of the army had been sent, but Louis of 
Savoy had kept them back out of hatred for Lautrec's sister, the duchess of 



SHOWING A CONNECTED HISTORY OF THE WORLD, 



1200—1350. 

GERMANY. 

1208 — OTHO crowned emperor at Rome. 

17— Flftli crusade by Hungarians and Germans. 

36 -Wai* with the Lombard league. 

45— Hansiatic league formed. 

73 -RUDOLF of Hapsburg emperor. 
1310-HENRY VIL subdues Lombards. 

13 -FREDERICK and LOUIS V. contend for the 
empire. 
, 22— LOUIS V. defeats FREDERICK at Muhldorf. 

26— Turks invade Germany. 

FRANCE. 

1209— Crusade against Albergeoise. 

19— Germans defeated at Bovines. 

29— Al berseolse defeated. 

48— Eislitli crusade under LOUIS IX. 

.50— Saracens capture LOUIS ; ten years truce. 

68— Nlntli crusade by LOUIS IX. and prince of 
Wales. 

70-Deatli of LOUIS IX. at Carthage. 

80— Massacre of Sicilians ; crusade against Aragon. 
1302— First convocation of States-general. 

28— House of Valvis begin to reign. 

37— "War with Flanders. [Cressy. 

46— AVar with England ; EDWARD victorious at 

47 — Xlie English capture Calais. 

ENGLAND. 

1204 — liossof Normandy. 

8 — Papal interdict of England. 

1 5 — Magna charta. 

62-68— tVar of the barons. 

65 — First regular parliament. 

83— Union of England and Wales. 

87— Jews banished. 
1308, '15, '25— AVars with barons. 

50— Order of the Garter. 

SCOTLAND. 

1275— Wars of JOHN BALLIOL and ROBERT 
BRl^CE. 

96— Scotland subdued by the English. 

97- Scotland revolts ; days of \VALLACE. 

99— Battle of Falkirk; Scots defeated by EDWARD I. 
1303— EDWARD I. invades Scotland. 

05— WILLIAM WALLACE executed in London. 

14— EDWARD defeated by ROBERT BRUCE. 

27— Independence of the Scots. 

33— EDWARD defeats the Scots. 

46— Battle of Dundee. 

IRELAND. 

1201 — Munster laid waste by English barons. 
10— Kins JOHN of England lands in Ireland. 
13— HENRY DE LONDRES archbishop of Dublin. 
77— THURLOUGH BRIAN treacherously slair. 
81— Battle of Moyne. 
16— Invasion of BRUCE. 
1 6— Defeat of the Irish. 
30-9— "Wars between the English. 
34— Sir JNO. MORRIS sent to Ireland. 
48— Black, death devastates the land. 

OTHER NATIONS. 

1202— Fourth crusade. 

3— donstantinople taken by crusaders. 

4^Iiatlns 'ijvide Greece. 

9— Inqnlsitlon established. 
28— Sixth crusade. [stored. 

29 — Ten years' truce with the sultan ; Jerusalem re- 
35 — Mongolians invade Russia. [nada. 

38— MOHAMMED I. founds Moorish kingdom of Gre- 
39— Seventh crusade. 
44 — Carismians seize Jerusalem. 
50 — Egypt ruled by Mamelukes. 
51 — Rise of the Medici family in Italy. 
52— ALEXANDER I. reigns in Russia. 
59— Pelcin built by KUBLA KHAN. 
76 — House of Hapsburg founded in Austria. 
91 — Acre taken by Mamelukes. 
99 — Turkish Empire established. 
1 300— Moscow capital of Russia. 

8— Swiss revolt in Austria ; WILLIAM TELL. 
21— DANTE died. 
34— First doge of Genoa. 
39 — The Colonna rise to power in Italy. 
40 — "War in Spain ; Moors defeated. 
47 — Democracy established by Rienzi. 



1351—1450. 



1356-The " Golden Bull " issued by CHARLES IV. 

87— Division of the empire. 
1410 — SIGISMUND of Hungary becomes emperor. 
. 15— JOHN HUSS burned at the stake. 

16-19— "War with Prague. 

35— Ii»vention of printing by Guttenberg. 

38— Pragmatic sanction ; ALBERT, duke of Aus- 
tria, becomes emperor. 

39 — Title of emperor to the house of Hapsburg. 

40— i-KEDERICK III., who reigned from 1440-1493, 
was an avaricious and indolent prince, who 
neglected the interests of Germany for Austria. 



1356— Battle of Poitiers; eight thousand English de- 
feat sixty thousand French : JOHN II. cap- 
tured by the " Black Prince. 
68— Jacquerie insurrection. 

60 — Peace of Brittany between England and France. 
1415 — Battle of Agincourt; fifty thousand French de- 
feated by ten thousand English. 
20— Paris captured by the English ; treaty of Troyes. 
29— JOAN OF ARC raises siege of Orleans. 
31— JOAN OF ARC burned at Rouen. 
35 — Treaty of Arras with Burgiandy. 



1356 — First book written in English. 

62— English made the language of the realm. 

80— Translation of the Bible by WYCLIFFE. 

81— WAT TYLER'S insurrection put down. 

85— Deathof JNO. WYCLIFFE, [English. 

88— Battle of CHEVY CHASE between Scots and 

97 — Iiollards or Wycliffites persecuted. 

99— Order of the Bath. 
1400— Death of CHAUCER and FROISSART. 

1— Rebellion in Wales ; the PERCIESand GLEN- 
DOWERS defeated. [England. 

22— HENRY VI. proclaimed long of France and 



1371— ROBERT II. first of the Stuart line in Scotland. 
141 1— liOW^landers defeat Highla* 
37— JAMES I. murdered. 



1367— Duke of Clarence viceroy. 

77 — Earl of March viceroy. 

94— RICHARD II. in Ireland. 
1402— THOMAS, duke of Lancaster, vicei 
4 — English defeated at Leix. 

12— Ulster devastated by the O'NEILS. 

25— EDWARD MORTIMER lord deputy. 

46— Fearful plague. 



1354- 
65- 
61 
63- 
67 
69- 
74- 
75- 
80- 
90- 
95- 
96- 

1402- 

14- 

22- 

25- 

30- 

33 

35- 

45- 



-RIENZI slain. 

-Turks enter Greece. 

Italy overrun by the Free Lances. 

-Austria possesses the Tyrol. 

-Armenia conquered by Ihe Mamelukes. 

-Empire of TAMERLANE founded. 

-Death of Petrarch ; rebellion against the pope. 

-Death of BOCCACCIO. 

-The Tartars defeated by DIMITRI II. of Russia. 

-liOSS of power in Asia by the Eastern Empire. 

-Bussia invaded by Tartars. 

-Hungarian Christians defeated by Turks. 

-Turks defeated by Tartars ; BAJAZET I. cap- 
tured. 

-Pope JOHN XXIII. deposed ; council of Con- 
stance. 

-AMURATH II. reunites the Ottoman empire. 

-"War between Venice and Milan. 

-AMURATH II. conquers Macedonia. 

-liisbon capital of Portugal. 

Birth of COLUMBUS ; war between Venice 
and the Turks ; Sicily and Naples unite. 

-Birth of LEONARDO DA VINCI. 



Designed^op Say's Standard Histories, by ■WILLIAM GA" 



KJk ± V^jL X. JL-/ 



X X ^ X XV X w_^, 



[ENT AND MODERN, FROM 2800 B.C. TO 1884 A.D. 



1451—1500. 



92 — f nrks invade parts of Germany. 
93— ]Peace with France ; German provinces restored. 
99— Switzerland permanently separated from Ger- 
many. 



53 — End of the French and English wars. 

75— Invasion by EDWARD IV. 

17 — Burgundy and Artois united to France. 

93 — Treaty of Barcelona between France and Spain. 

94— CHARLES VIII. invades Italy. 

99— Frencto. seize Milan. 



55 — "Wars of the Roses commenced. 

81— HENRY VI. deposed by EDWARD IV. 

11 — First printin? press established by WILLIAM 
CAXTON. 

83— Murder of EDWARD V. in the Tower; RICH- 
ARD III. usurps the throne. 

35— Death of RICHARD III. on Bosworth field : 
HENRY VII. succeeds. 

87— Institution of Star Chamber. 

92— HENRY VII. sells the sovereignty of France. 

94— liOllards persecuted. 

98— insurrection of Perkin Warbeck. 



5»-JAMES II. murders DOUGLAS. 



82— Earl of Desmond lord deputy ; battle of PiHtown. 
67— Earl of Desmond beheaded 
87— LAMBERT SIMNEL crowned at Dublin as ED- 
WARD VI. 
92— WARBECK plot promulgated. 



MERICA. 

Inhabited by Indian tribes. 
92— COLUMBUS discovers West Indies. 
97— JOHN CABOT and son discover North America. 
99— AMERIGO VESPUCCI discovers America. 



S3 — MOHAMMED conquers Constantinople ; end of 

Eastern Empire ; FREDERICK III. creates 

archduchy of Austria. 
56— Hungarians repulse the Turks at the battle of 

Belgrade. 
60— Greece conquered by the Turks. 
62— Modern Russian Empire founded by IVAN the 

Great. 
63— "War between Turks and Venice. 
74— FERDINAND and ISABELLA reign in Spain; 

birth of MICHAEL ANGELO. 
77— Hoi land annexed to Austria. 
79— A R AGON and CASTILE unite. 
80— Moiiffolian power in Russia overthrown. 
84— Turks invade Spain. 
88— "War between Sweden and Ru.ssia. 
97— Passage to India discovered by PASCO DE 

GAMA. 



1501—1550. 

1517— Reformation under LUTHER begins. 
19 — CHARLES V. of Spain made emperor. 
21 — LUTHER excommunicated ; diet at Worms. 
22— Bible and liturgy translated by LUTHER. 
27— Rome captured. 
29— Diet at Spires. 

30— Au.sburg confession. fkald. 

31— Frotestant princes form the league of Smal- 
34— Anabaptrsts' war; Munster captured. 
36— .\iiaba|>tist8 suppressed. 
46- Ueatii of LUTHER. 

46 52 AVar on the Protestants by CHARLES V., 
iht-y are assisted by HENR"/ II., of France, 



1503— Spain invaded by LOUIS XII. 
8 — League of Cambray. 

11- Fope JULIUS II. forms the Holy League. 

13— Euglisii invasion. 

20—" Field of the Cloth of Gold." 

25— Battle of Pavia ; defeat and capture of FRAN- 
CIS I. 

29— Peace of Cambria. 

32— Brittany annexed. 

44— Englisli invasion. 

46— Treaty of Peace with England. 

15- FRANCIS I. invades Italy; defeats Germans, 
Swiss and Italians. 



1509— HENRY VIII. marries CATHERINE of Aragon. 

13— Invasion of England by JAMES IV. of Scot- 
land; Scots defeated. 

29— Fall of Cardinal WOLSEY. 

33— HENRY VIII. marries ANNE BOLEYN. 

34 — Papal supremacy denied. 

36— AN5fE BOLEYN executed; HENRY marries 
Lady JANE SEYMOUR. 

37— liady JANE SEYMOUR dies. 

38— Monasteries suppressed. 

40— HENRY marries ANNE of Cleves : is divorced 
and marries CATHERINE HOWARD. 

42— Execution of CATHERINE HOWARD. 

43— HENRY marries CATHERINE PARR. 

49— Execution of Lord SEYMOUR. 



1540 — MARY proclaimed queen of Scots. 
46— CARDINAL BEATON assassinated. 



1534-FITZGERALD rebels. 

42-HENRY VIII. of England takes the Utle of king 
of Ireland. 



1513— BALBOA discovers the Pacific. 
19 — Iianding of Cortez in Mexico. 
24— Settlement of New France. 
41 — Tlie Mississippi discovered by De Soto. 



1500-2 — Spanish Moors suppressed and compelled to 

adopt Christianity. [eracy. 

-Basle and Schafthausen join the Swiss confed- 
>— Holland under CHARLES V. of Spain. 
)— Invasion of Russia by Tartars. 
t- Spain annexes Navarre. 
-First foothold in China by Europeans ; Egypi 

;innexed to Ottoman Empire. 
-Italian league against France. 
-Hungarians defeated by Turkey ; Mogul dy- 
nasty founded in India ; Bohemia and Hungary 
united to Austria. 
) — Turks overrun Austria for a long period. 
-CHARLES V. of Spain conquers Italy ; progress 
of the reformation in Switzerland. 
)— Ottoman power in Greece. 
-Oreat Tartar invasion repelled. 
-Confederacy joined by the Grison league. 



1- 

6- 

10- 

12- 

17- 

23- 

26- 



29- 
30- 

40- 
41- 
44- 



CHART V. 



FROM 1200 TO 1550 A.D. 



56 Chapel St.. New Haven. Conn. COPYBIGHT 1883. 



GAY'S chrc:nOlogical charts, 

SHOWING A CONNECTED HISTORY OF THE WORLD, Ax\XIEXT AND MODERN, FROM ^SOO B.C. TO 1881 A.D. 



1200-1350. 

GERMANY. 

J 208 OTHf; trown'fl (rciipcrr.r at Rome. 

1 7 FlCtli ' rusadc by Hungarians and Germans. 

30 U'ar wi-li ' .(• Lombard league. 

'15 IlHIiNlat:^ ieaKUf formed 

7;{ i<()/jOM' of Hajmburi; emperor. 
1310 -UENKV VII. subduCH Ix.mbards. 

!».- I'KKUKKICK and LOUIS V. contend for the 

aa I,o':''(s' V'. defeat* FRKUERICK at MUhldorf. 
20 Til rk» invade Germany. 

FRAN'CE. 



I20f» 
l» 
20 

IN 

■ 50 

ON 

70 

NO 
ISO'i 

2H 

:i7 

40 
47 



(:rilNa<l<; a^ain-it Alber>:eoi»c. 

(ilcriiinnM defeated at Hovincs. 

;i I >><• rtioolmi defeated. 

ICiirlilli ' n.sade under LOUIS IX. 

Hnriu-o.itM . a|<ture Lf;UIS • ten years truce. 

jMiiIIi iruHadc by LOUIS IX. and prince of 

W..ieK. 
nc^ntli of LOUIS IX. at CarthaKC 
iUiiMMiK-ro of Sicilians ; criwadeai^ainst Araf^on. 
■""IrHt c t.nvocation of States-General. 
ll<>iiM<t of V;ilvrs IjeKin l'> reign. 
War with I'l.inders. [Crcssy. 

War willj Knglaiid ; KOWARD victorious at 
'I'Ik; iviiglisli capture Calais. 



KN(;LANn. 



1204- l>OHHof Normandy. 

H— Papal inlerdiet of Kngland. 

15 iriauiin I Ijarla. 

02 OS «'ar..f tlie barons. 

05 Ifli-Nl trioil.ir parliament. 

H» IHiloiiol I'.ii^'land and Wales. 

87 .Ic\VNb.mi'.hed. 
1S08, M5, '25 Warn with barons. 

60 Ordor of the (iarter. 

SCOTLAND. 

1275 Ward of JOHN HALLIOL and ROBERT 

IIUIMK. 
00 Nl-otlaiKl subdued by tlic Kni'Iish. 
07 NrodaiKl revolts; days of WAI. LACK. 

■laUloof Kalkirk; Seoisdcfeated by KUWARD I. 

I'.KWAUI) I. invades Scotland. 

Willi AM W A I. LACK executed ni London. 

I'-.DWAKI) .lef< aieil by ROHKRT HkUCE. 

Iii<l<>|>i'ii<li'ii<'f of the Scots. 

IfDVVAkl) d(le..isllK- Scots. 

Ilattlcot Dundee. 



ELAND. 



!►» 
180.1 

05 
14 

i 27 

1801 ITIimotor laid waste by I^iijilisli barons. 

10 Klim lOlIN ..I lMn..|.uul lands in Ireland. 

l;» Ill'.NUV l)l'', l.ONDUl'.S .in hbisliop of Dublin 

77 1 lll'l<l.()U(;il IIKIAN treacherously blair. 

HI llaltloof Movne. 

15 ■iivanloii »f IIRUCK. 

10 Ucl'eat of the Irish. 

30 Warn between the Unifllsh. 

»4 SIr.lNO. MORRIS sent to Ireland. 

48 lilark death devastates the land. 

otiii-:r nations. 

1802 

:t 
I 

2S 
20 

:i5 
its 

30 
I 44 
I fiO 

&1 

52 

50 

TO 

01 

Ott- 

1300 

8 

21 

84 

89 

40- 

4T- 

T 



I'oiirtli crusade. 

4'oiiM(aii<iii4>iiIc t.tkcn by crus.tdcrs. 

l.iKliiN In ide Greece. 

1ii<||||nIII(>ii established. 

Sl\lli ctus.ule. fstored. 

1<>|| ve.iis iruce with the sultan ; Jerusalem re- 

nioiiu'ollaiiN invaile Russia. fnada 

Ml 1)1 \mmi.;d I. fiHinds Moorish kinirdomof Gre- 
-Sovoiilli inisade. 

riirlNiiilaiiN ■.ei.e lernsulcm. 

IC'iV|»< Mil.ai.v Mamelukes. 

Ulsr ol tlio Me<lici f.unilv in Italy 

Al K\.\NDKR I. reitns in Rus.sia. 

Poklil built by KURl.A KHAN. 

IloiiNo of llapsburtj founded in Austria 

AiTO l.ikeu by Mamelukes. 
-'rui-kij4li I'aiipirc established. 
-niONCow capital of Russia. 

?5Vvf""! ""''''' '" Austria; WILLIAM TELL. 
-DAN 1 K died. 
-Plrwt dojre of Genoa. 
-Tliw CoUiium rise to power in Italy. 
-War In Siwin ; Moors defeated. 
-D«uto«<rac}' established by Rienii 



1351—1450. 



1 3.56-TliP " Golden Bull " issued by CHARLES IV. 

87— Divinion of the empire. 
1410— SK.IS.ML'.N'D of Hungary becomes emperor. 
1.^— JOH.V HLSS burned at the stake. 
10 10- War with Prague. 
.35 Invention of printing by Guttenberg. 
38— Prastniatlc sanction : ALBERT, duke of Aus- 

tri.t. becomes emperor. 
39— XlUe of emperor to the house of Hapsburg. 
40— IKhDERICK III., who reigned from 1440-1403, 
was an avaricious and indolent prince, who 
neglected the interests of Germany for Austria. 



1356— Battle of Poitiers; eight thousand English de- 
feat sixty thousand French : JOHN II. cap- 
tured by the " Black Prince. 

58— Jacquerie insurrection. 

60— Peace of Brittany between England and France. 
1415— Battleof Agincourt ; fifty thousand French de- 
feated by ten thousand Engli.sh. 

20— Paris c-iptured by the English ; treaty of Troves. 

20— JOAN OK ARC raises siege of Orleans. 

31— JOAN OF ARC burned at Rouen. 

35— Treaty of Arras with Burgundy. 



1350— Fl rut hook written in English. 

62 Ii:n<;liMli made the language of the realm. 

80— TranKlation of the Bible by WYCLIFFE. 

81-W.\r TYLER'S insurrection put down. 

85-Dcatliof JNO. WYCLIFFE [English. 

88-Battle of CHEVY CHASE between Scots and 

97 — IjollardH or Wyclillites persecuted. 

99— Order of the Bath. 
1400— Death of CHAUCER .-ind FROISSART. 

1— Bebellioii in Wales ; ilie PERCIES and GLEN- 
DOWERS defeated. [England. 

22— HENRY VI. proclaimed king of France and 



1371-ROnERT II. first of the Stuart line in Scotland. 
141 1 — I>o\viandcrN defeat Highla* 
37— JAMES I. murdered. 



1367— Dnke of Clarence viceroy. 

77- Earl of M.trch viceroy. 

94-RICHARD II. in Irel.ind. 
1402 -THOMAS, duke of Lancaster, vicei 
4— Kn;;llHli defeated at Leix. 

1 2—1) letter devastated by the O'NEILS. 

25-EDWARD MORTIMER lord deputy. 

46— FcarAil plague. 



1354-RIENZI slain. 

56 - TiirkH enter Greece. 

61 Italy overrun by the Free Lances. 

03 — . I list r la possesses the Tyrol 

67— .\rmenla conquered bv the .Mamelukes. 

OO-Kmplro of TAMERLANE founded. 

74- Death of Petrarch ; rebellion against the pope. 

75-Deatli of BOCCACCIO. 

80— The Tartars defeated by DIMITRI II. of Russia. 

90— L.OKM of power in Asia by the Eastern Empire. 

95— Riisula inv.tded by Tartars. 

96— Hiui'rarlan Christians defeated by Turks. 
1402-Turk» defeated by Tartars ; B.MAZET I. cap- 
tured. 

14-Pope JOHN XXIII. deposed ; council of Con- 
stance. 

22— AMl'RATH II. reunites the Ottoman empire. 

2.5 — War between Venice and Milan. 

SO— AMl'RATH II. conquers Macedonia. 

S3 -Lisbon capital of Portugal. 

35- Birth of COLUMBUS; war between Venice 
and the Turks ; Sicily and Naples unite. 

45-BirtIi of LEONARDO DA VINCI. 



1451—1500. 



1492-Tnrk8 invade parts of C»crmanv. 

93— Peace with France : German provinces restored. 
99— Switzerland permanently separated from Ger- 
many. 



1453— End of the French and English wars. 
75-Iiiva(iiouby EDWARD IV. 
77— Burgundy and Artois united to France. 
93 -Treaty of Barcelona between France and Spain. 
94-CHARl.ES VIII. invades Italy. "^ 

99— French seize Milan. 



14.5.?— W^ars of the Roses commenced. 

61 -HENRY VI. deposed by EDWARD IV. 

71— First printing press established by WILLIAM 

CA.XTON. 
83— Murder of EDWARD V. in the Tower; RICH- 

.AKD III. usurps the throne. 
85-Death of RICHARD III. on Bosworth field • 

HENRY VII. succeeds. 
87— IiiKtltiition of Star Chamber. 
92— HENRY VII. sells the sovereignty of France. 
94— Eiollards persecuted. 
08— lusurrectiou of Pcrkin Warbeck. 



145!t-JAMES 11. murders DOUGLAS. 



1 462— Earl of Desmond lord deputy ; battle of PiHtown 
67— Earl of Desmond beheacled 
87-LAMBERT SIMNEL crowned at Dublin as ED. 

92— WARBECK plot promulgated. 



AMERICA. 



Inhabited by Indian tribes. 
1492-COLUMBUS discovers West Indies. 

97— JOHN CABOT and son discover North America 
99-AMERIGO VESPUCCI discovers America 

1453— MOHAMMED conquers Constantinople- end of 

Eastern Empire; FREDERICK III. creates 

archduchy of .Austria. 
66— Hiingariaun repulse the Turks at the battle of 

Belgrade. 
Greece conquered by the Turks. 
inudern Russian Empire founded by IVAN the 

Great. 
War between Turks and Venice. 
FERDINAND and ISABELLA reign in Spain: 

birth of MICHAEL ANGELO. 
Holland annexed to Austria. 
.A R AGON and CASTILE unite. 
Moiisolian power in Russia overthrown. 
TiirkH invade Spain. 
AVar between Sweden and Russia. 
Paosase to India discovered by PASCO DE 

GAMA. 



60 
62- 

63- 
74- 

77 
79 
80 
84 
88- 
97- 



1501—1550. 



-Reroriuation under LUTHER begins. 
-L H.VKI.ES V. of S(viin lu.ule emperor. 
-I-l niKR excoiumunicateii ; diet at Worms. 

Bible .uid liturgy trai\slated by LUTHER. 

Konie captured. 
-Diet at Spirvs. 

.\ ii.x b II rs con fession. I kald 

ProlcMlHiit princes fonn the leagtie of Smal- 

\iiiil>M|ili.«|K< w.ir ; Munster captured. 

Aiiabaiitlst.ssunpiesstHl. 

Ueatii 01 l.l ITIER. 
52 War on the Protestants bv Til VK 1 IS V., 
they aie assisted by llENKV U , ot I i.uioo, 



1503 Spain invaded by LOl'lS XU. 
S ' League of Camhray. 
1 I Pope U'l.U'S U. lorms the Holy Leagi 



1517 
19 
21 
22 
27 
29 
30 
:u 
:<i 
3t; 



13 
20 
25 

20 
32 
4 1 
4 
15 



1509 
13 

29 
33 

3 1 
30 

37 
3S 
10 

4 2 
43 
49 



EiiKll.Hh mv.ision. 

" Field of the Cloth of Gold." 

Battleof I'avia; defeat and caplurc of h'RAN- 

Peace of Cambria. 
Brittany annexed. 
EiiKllnh invusi<in. 
'»'■;«'«» y "f Peace with England, 
I'KANCIS I. Invades ItaPy ; defeats Germans, 
Swiss and Italians. 



HENRY VIII. manies (A 1 IIKKINE of Aragon. 
InyaMloii ,,f Ku^land by J AMES IV. of Scot- 

l.md; Seols deliMUd 
Fallot faialinal UOISEY 
IlKNUV VIII. marries ANNE BOI.EYN. 
Papal suprem.K v denied, 
ANf^K 1!()|.|.-,YN executed; IIKNRY marries 

l.i.lv l.WK Sl'-.VMOUR. 
I.ady ] \\|. .^l.VMiU'Rdies. 
ffloiiant.TlcM suppressed. 
lll.NKV iniuKs ANM', .if eleven; Is divorced 

and in.irries (A 11 IKRINK HOWARD. 
i'.xcciition of CATHERINE HOWARD 
IIKNRV marries CATHERINE PARR. 
E.vecutionof Lord SEYMOUR. 



1640 MARY iiroclaimed (lueen of Scots, 
46-CARDINAL BEATON assassinat* 



1 634-FITZGERALD rebels. 

42-HENRY VHI. of England takes the title of king 

of Ireland. 



1613— BALBOA discovers the P.icific. 
19 liundlneof Cortci in Mexico. 
24-Kettleinontof New France. 
41— Tlie Mississippi discovered by De Soto. 



1600-2 — Spaninh Moom mippressed and compelled to 

ado|»t ( brisiianity. [eracy. 

1-Ba»lc .ind Sih.iflli.iiisin join the Swiss confcd- 
llolland iiiider ( 1 1 ARLKS V. of Spain. 

10 IiivumIoii of KiisM.i by Tartars. 

12 Spain annexes Navarre. 

17— Flmt foothold in China by Europeans; EgypI 
.imiexed to fjttoman Empire. 

23 -Italian le.igue against Fr.iiicc. 

26-IIlinu;arlanN defeaied by Turkey ; Mogul dy- 
nasty founded in India; fioliemia and Hungary 
uniied to Austria. 

29— Turku overrun Austria for a long period. 

30— CHARLES V. of Spain conquers Italy ; progress 
of the reformation in Switzerland. 

40— Ottoman power in Greece. 

41— fcSrcat Tartar invasion repelled. 

44— Confederacy joined by the Grison league. 



CHART V. 



FROM 1200 TO 1550 A.D, 




Designed -foif Qay's Standard Histories, by "WTXIiIAM: GAY & Co.. 256 Chapel St., New Haven. Conn. COPYEIGHT 1883, 



^ - '- - - — 



1524] FRANCE.— THE RENAISSANCE. 93 

Chateaubriand, who, at that time, was all powerful over the mind of Francis I. 
The king then allowed the siipcrintcndant Semblancay, who was accused of that 
crime, to perish on the gallows. 

According to what appears, Bourbon had harbored a design of commenc- 
ing his enterprise with a very bold stroke. Being informed that Francis I. 
was preparing to go in person and wage war upon Italy, he had resolved to 
carry him off on the road to Lyons and, when once he had the king in his 
hands, he flattered himself that he would do as he pleased with the kingdom. 
But Francis had full cognizance of the details of the conspiracy through two 
Norman gentlemen whom the constable had imprudently tried to get to join 
in it, and who, not content with refusing, had revealed the matter at confes- 
sion to the bishop of Lisieux, who had lost no time in giving information to 
Sire de Breze, grand seneschal of Normandy. Breze at once reported it to 
the king. Abandoning his expedition in person into Italy, he first concerned 
himself for that internal security of his kingdom which was threatened on 
the east and north by the Imperialists and the English, and on the south by 
the Spaniards, all united in considerable force and already in motion. Fran- 
cis opposed to them in the east and north the young Count Claude of Guise, 
the first celebrity among his celebrated race, the veteran Louis de la 
Tremoille, the most tried of all his warriors, and the duke of Vendome, head 
of the younger branch of the house of Bourbon. Into the south he sent 
Marshal de Lautrec, who was more brave than successful, but of proved fidel- 
ity. All these captains acquitted themselves honorably. In the south, 
Lautrec, after having made head for three days and three nights against the 
attacks of a Spanish army which had crossed the Pyrenees under the orders 
of the constable of Castile, forced it to raise the siege and beat a retreat. 
Everywhere, in the provinces as well as at the court, the feudal nobility, chief- 
tains and simple gentlemen remained faithful to the king. 

In respect of Italy, Francis I. was less wise and less successful. Not 
only did he persist in the stereotyped madness of the conquest of Milaness 
and the kingdom of Naples, but he entrusted it to his favorite. Admiral Bon- 
nivet, a brave soldier, alternately rash and backward. The campaign of 1524 
in Italy, brilliant as was its beginning, was, as it went on, nothing but a scries 
of hesitations, contradictory movements, blunders and checks, which the arm}- 
itself set down to its general's account. The situation of the French army 
before Milan was now becoming more and more, not insecure only, but critical. 
Bonnivet fell back toward Piedmont, where he reckoned upon finding a corps 
of five thousand Swiss who were coming to support their compatriots engaged 
in the service of France. Near Romagnano, on the banks of the Sesia, the 
retreat was hotly pressed by the imperial army. On the 30th of April, 1 524, 
some disorder took place in the retreat of the French ; and Bonnivet, being 
severely wounded, had to give up the command to the count of St. Pol and 
to Chevalier Bayard. Bayard, last as well as first in the fight, according to 
his custom, charged at the head of some men-at-arms upon the Imperialists 
who were pressing the French too closely, when he was himself struck by a 



94 FRANCE.— THE RENAISSANCE. [1524 

shot from an arquebus, which shattered his reins. " Jesus, my God," he cried, 
" I am dead ! " He then took his sword by the handle, and kissed the cross- 
hilt of it as the sign of the cross, saying aloud as he did so: ''■Have pity on 
tne, O God, according to tJiy great mercy" (Miserere mei^ Dciis^ secundum mag- 
nam misericordiam ttiam). 

The French army continued its retreat under the orders of the count of 
St. Pol, and re-entered France by way of Suza and Briancon. It was Francis 
I.'s third time of losing Milaness. According to a plan settled by him with 
Henry VIII. and Charles V., Bourbon entered Provence on the 7th of July, 
1524, at the head of an army of eighteen thousand men, which was to be 
joined before long by six or seven thousand more. He had no difficulty in 
occupying Antibes, Frejus, Draguignan, Brignoles, and even Aix. Charles V. 
cared more for the coasts of the Mediterranean than for those of the Channel ; 
he flattered himself that he would make of Marseilles a southern Calais, which 
should connect Germany and Spain, and secure their communications, politi- 
cal and commercial. Bourbon objected and resisted ; it was the abandon- 
ment of his general plan for this* war, and a painful proof how powerless he 
was against the wishes of the two sovereigns of whom he was only the tool, 
although they called him their ally. Being forced to yield, he began the 
siege of Marseilles on the 19th of August. The place, though but slightly 
fortified and ill supplied, made an energetic resistance. The siege was 
protracted ; the re-enforcements expected by Bourbon did not arrive. Bourbon 
resolved to attempt an assault. Seven soldiers were told off to reconnoiter ; 
four were killed and the other three returned wounded, reporting that between 
the open breach and the intrenchment extended a large ditch filled with fire- 
works and defended by several batteries. The assembled general officers 
looked at one another in silence. Whereupon Pescara got up and went out ; 
and the majority of the officers followed him. Bourbon remained' almost 
alone, divided between anger and shame. Almost as he quitted this scene he 
heard that Francis I. was advancing toward Provence with an army. The 
king had suddenly decided to go to the succor of Marseilles which was making 
so good a defense, and on the 28th of September, 1524, Bourbon raised the 
siege of Marseilles and resumed the road to Italy, harassed even beyond 
Toulon, by the French advance guards, eager in its pursuit of the traitor even 
more than of the enemy. 

After Bourbon's precipitate retreat the position of Francis I. was a good 
one. He had triumphed over conspiracy and invasion ; the conspiracy had 
not been catching, and the invasion had failed on all the frontiers. When 
Bourbon and the imperial army had evacuated Provence, the king loudly 
proclaimed his purpose of pursuing them into Italy, and of once more going 
forth to the conquest of Milaness, and perhaps also of the kingdom of Naples, 
that incurable craze of French kings in the sixteenth century. In vain did 
his mother herself write to him, begging him to wait and see her, for that she 
had important matters to impart to him. He answered by sending her the 
ordinance which conferred upon her the regency during his absence ; and, at 



1524] FRANCE.— THE RENAISSANCE. 95 

the end of October, 1524, he had crossed the Alps, anxious to go and risk in 
Milaness the stake he had just won in Provence against Charles V. 

Arriving speedily in front of Milan, he there found the imperial army 
Avhich had retired before him ; there was a fight in one of the outskirts, but 
Bourbon recognized the impossibility of maintaining a siege in a town of 
which the fortifications were in ruins, and with disheartened troops. Bourbon 
■evacuated Milan, and, taking a resolution as bold as it was singular, abruptly 
abandoned, so far as he was personally concerned, that defeated and disor- 
ganized army, to go and seek for and reorganize another at a distance. 
Francis followed the counsel of Bonnivet, and on the 26th of August, 1524, 
twenty days after setting out from Aix in Provence, he appeared with his 
army in front of Pavia. On learning this resolution, Pescara joyously exclaimed, 
" We were vanquished ; a little while and we shall be vanquishers." Pavia had 
for governor a Spanish veteran, Antony de Leyva, who held out for nearly 
four months, first against assaults and then against investment by the French 
army. Francis I. decided to accept battle as soon as it should be offered 
him. The imperial leaders, at a council held on the 23d of February, deter- 
mined to offer it next day. 

The tAvo armies were of pretty equal strength. Francis I. had the advan- 
tage in artillery and in heavy cavalry, called at that time the gendarmerie, but 
his troops were inferior in effectives to the Imperialists, and Charles V.'s two 
•generals, Bourbon and Pescara, were, as men of war, far superior to Francis I. 
and his favorite Bonnivet. After a desperate struggle the French were 
defeated ; the gendarmerie gave way, and the German lanzknechts cut to pieces 
the Swiss auxiliaries. But at last Lannoy arrived and put one knee on the 
ground before Francis I., who handed his sword to him. Lannoy took it 
with marks of the most profound respect, and immediately gave him another. 
The battle was over, and Francis I. was Charles V.'s prisoner. 

He had shown himself an imprudent and unskillful general, but at the 
same time a hero. His conquerors, both ofificers and privates, could not help, 
while they secured his person, showing their admiration for him. He was 
conducted to Pizzighittone, a little fortress between Milan and Cremona. He- 
wrote thence two letters, one to his mother the regent, and the other to 
Charles V. The following is full text of the former letter: 

" To the Regent of France : Madame, that you may know how stands 
the rest of my misfortune : t.Jiere is nothing in the world left to me but honor 
and my life, whicJi is safe. And in order that, in your adversity, this news 
might bring you some little comfort,! prayed for permission to write you this 
letter, which was readily granted me: entreating you, in the exercise of your 
accustomed prudence, to be pleased not to do anything rash, for I have hope 
after all that God will not forsake me. Commending to you my children, 
your grandchildren, and entreating you to give the bearer a free passage, 
going and returning to Spain, for he is going to the emperor to learn how it 
is his pleasure that I should be treated." 

Taken prisoner to Spain, the unfortunate monarch was restored to liberty 



96 FRANCE.— THE RENAISSANCE. [1527 

only on conditions of his signing the treaty of Madrid, by which he abandoned 
Italy, Burgundy, Artois, Flanders, besides restoring to the constable of Bour- 
bon his confiscated estates. He likewise promised to marry the sister of 
Charles V., and gave both his sons as hostages. 

The envoys of Charles V., with Lannoy, the viceroy of Naples at their 
head, went to Cognac to demand execution of the treaty of Madrid. Francis 
invited the envoys of Charles V. to a solemn meeting of his court and council 
present at Cognac, at which the delegates from Burgundy repeated their 
protest. While availing himself of this declaration as an insurmountable 
obstacle to the complete execution of the treaty of Madrid, Francis offered 
to give two million crowns for the redemption of Burgundy, and to observe 
the other arrangements of the treaty, including the relinquishment of Italy 
and his marriage with the sister of Charles V. Charles formally rejected this 
proposal, and required of him to keep his oath. 

He did not like to summon the States-general of the kingdom and recog- 
nize their right as well as their power ; but after the meeting at Cognac he 
went to Paris, and, on the 12th of December, 1527, the parliament met in 
state with the adjuncts of the princes of the blood, a great number of cardi- 
nals, bishops, noblemen, deputies from the parliaments of Toulouse, Bordeaux, 
Rouen, Dijon, Grenoble and Aix, and the municipal body of Paris. 

The assembly also showed emotion ; they were four days deliberating ; 
with some slight diversity of form the various bodies present came to the 
same conclusion and, on the i6th of December, 1527, the parliament decided 
that the king was not bound either to return to Spain or to execute, as to 
that matter, the treaty of Madrid, and that he might with full sanction and 
justice levy on his subjects two millions of crowns for the ransom of his sons 
and the other requirements of the State. 

Before inviting such manifestations Francis I. had taken measures to 
prevent them from being in vain. As early as the 22d of May, 1526, while he 
was still deliberating with his court and parliament as to how he should 
behave toward Charles V. touching the treaty of Madrid, Francis I. entered 
into the Holy League with the pope, the Venetians, and the duke of Milan 
for the independence of Italy ; and on the 8th of August following Francis L. 
and Henry VIII. undertook, by a special treaty, to give no assistance one 
against the other to Charles V., and Henry VIII. promised to exert all his 
efforts to get Francis I.'s two sons, left as hostages in Spain, set at liberty. 
Thus the war between Francis I. and Charles V., after fifteen months' 
suspension, resumed its course. 

It lasted three years in Italy, from 1526 to 1529, without interruption, 
but also without result ; it was one of those wars which are prolonged 
from a difficulty of living in peace rather than from any serious intention, 
on either side, of pursuing a clear and definite object. The French army 
was wasting itself in the kingdom of Naples upon petty inconclusive 
engagements; its commander, Lautrec, died of the plague on the 15th of 
August, 1528; a desire for peace became day by day stronger; it was 



1534] FRANCE.— THE RENAISSANCE. 97 

made, first of all, at Barcelona, on the 20th of June, 1529, between 
Charles V. and Pope Clement VII. ; and then a conference was opened 
at Cambrai for the purpose of bringing it about between Charles V. 
and Francis I. likewise. Two women, Francis I.'s mother and Charles V.'s 
aunt, Louise of Savoy and Margaret of Austria, had the real negotiation of it, 
and it was called accordingly tJie ladies peace. Margaret of Austria died on 
the 1st of December, 1530, and Louise of Savoy on the 22d of September, 
1531. All the great political actors seemed hurrying away from the stage, as if 
the drama were approaching its end. Pope Clement VII. died on the 26th of 
September, 1534. A little before his death he made France a fatal present ; 
for, on the 28th of October, 1533, he married his niece Catherine de' Medici 
to Francis I.'s second son. Prince Henry of Valois, who by the death of his 
elder brother, the dauphin Francis, soon afterward became heir to the throne. 
The chancellor, Anthony Duprat, too, the most considerable up to that time 
among the advisers of Francis I., died on the 9th of July, 1535. 

The ladies peace, concluded at Cambrai in 1529, lasted up to 1536. In 
October, 1532, Francis I. had, at Calais, an interview with Henry VIII., at 
which they contracted a private alliance and undertook " to raise between 
them an army of eighty thousand men to resist the Turk, as true zealots for 
the good of Christendom." 

In 1536 all the combustibles of war exploded : in the month of February, 
a French army entered Piedmont and occupied Turin ; and, in the month of 
July, Charles V. in person entered Provence at the head of fifty thousand 
men. Anne de Montmorency, having received orders to defend Southern 
France, began by laying it waste in order that the enemy might not be able 
to live in it ; Montmorency made up his mind to defend, on the whole coast 
of Provence, only Marseilles and Aries; he pulled down the ramparts of 
the other towns, which were left exposed to the enemy. For two months 
Charles V. prosecuted this campaign without a fight, marching through the 
whole of Provence an army which fatigue, shortness of provisions, sickness 
and ambuscades were decimating ingloriously. At last he decided upon . 
retreating. 

On returning from his sorry expedition, Charles V. learned that a similar 
invasion in the north of France, in Picardy, had met with no greater success 
than he himself in Provence. Queen Mary of Hungary, his sister and 
deputy in the government of the Low Countries, advised a local truce ; his 
other sister, Eleanor, the queen of France, was of the same opinion ; Francis 
I. adopted it ; and the truce in the north was signed for a period of three 
months. Montmorency signed a similar one for Piedmont. Pope Paul III. 
(Alexander Farnese), who, on the 13th of October, 1534, had succeeded Clement 
VII., came forward as mediator. One month afterward, Charles and Francis 
met at Aigues-Mortes, and these two princes, who had treated one another in 
so insulting a manner, exchanged protestations of the warmest frendship. 
The peace lasted six years. 

Divers projects of marriage between their children or near relatives were 

7 



98 FRANCE.— THE RENAISSANCE. [1542 

advanced with that object, but nothing came of them ; and another great 
war, the fourth, broke out between Francis I. and Charles V., for the same 
causes and with the same by-ends as ever. It lasted two years, from 1542 to 
1544, with alternations of success and reverse on either side, and several 
diplomatic attempts to embroil in it the different European powers. Francis 
I. concluded an alliance in 1543 with Sultan Soliman II., and, in concert with 
French vessels, the vessels of the pirate Barbarossa cruised about and made 
attacks upon the shores of the Mediterranean. On the other hand, on the 
nth of February, 1543, Charles V. and Henry VIII., king of England, 
concluded an alliance against Francis I. and the Turks. He at the same time 
convoked a German diet at Spires. The diet did not separate until it had 
voted twenty-four thousand foot and four thousand horse to be employed 
against France, and had forbidden Germans, under severe penalties, to take 
service with Francis I. In 1544 the war thus became almost European, and 
in the early days of April two armies were concentrated in Piedmont, both 
ready to deliver a battle which was, according to one side, to preserve Europe 
from the despotic sway of a single master, and, according to the other, to 
protect Europe against a fresh invasion of Mussulmans. 

The battle was bravely disputed and for some time indecisive, even in the 
opinion of the anxious Count D'Enghien, who was for awhile in an awkward 
predicament ; but the ardor of the Gascons and the firmness of the Swiss 
prevailed, and the French army was victorious. This success, however, had 
not the results that might have been expected. The war continued ; Charles 
V. transferred his principal efforts therein to the north, on the frontiers of 
the Low Countries and France, having concluded an alliance with Henry 
VIII. for acting in concert and on the offensive. (See History of England.) 

Francis I., in his life as a king and a soldier, had two rare pieces of good 
fortune : two great victories, Melegnano and Ceresole, stand out at the 
beginning and the end of his reign ; and in his direst defeat at Pavia, he was 
personally a hero. In all else, as regards his government, his policy was 
neither an able nor a successful one ; for two and thirty years he was engaged 
in plans, attempts, wars, and negotiations ; he failed in all his designs ; he 
undertook innumerable campaigns or expeditions that came to nothing ; he 
concluded forty treaties of war, peace, or truce, incessantly changing aim and 
cause and allies ; and, for all this incoherent activity, he could not manage 
to conquer either the empire or Italy ; he brought neither aggrandizement 
nor peace to France. 

Outside of the political arena, in quite a different field of ideas and facts, 
that is, in the intellectual field, Francis I. did better and succeeded better. 
In this region he exhibited an instinct and a taste for the grand and the beauti- 
ful ; he had a sincere love for literature, science, and art ; he honored and 
protected, and effectually too, their works and their representatives. His 
reign occupies the first half of the century (the sixteenth) which has been 
called the age of Renaissance. 

The religious question aside, the Renaissance was a great and happy 



1534] FRANCE.— THE RENAISSANCE- 



99 



thing, which restored to Hght and honor the works and glories of the Greek 
and Roman communities. The memorials and monuments of classical civiliza- 
tion, which were suddenly removed, at the fall of the Greek empire, to Italy- 
first and then from Italy to France and throughout the whole of Western 
Europe, impressed with just admiration people as well as princes, and inspired 
them with the desire of marching forward in their turn in this attractive and 
glorious career. 

In Kterature and in art, in history and in poesy, in architecture and in 
sculpture, they had produced great and beautiful works which were quite 
worthy of surviving, and have, in fact, survived the period of their creation. 
Here too the Renaissance of Greek and Roman antiquity came in and altered 
the origin.ality of the earliest productions of the middle ages, and gave to 
literature and to art in France a new direction. 

The first among the literary creations of the middle ages is that of the 
French language itself. When we pass from the ninth to the thirteenth 
century, from the oath of Charles the Bald and Louis the Germanic at 
Strasbourg in 842, to the account of the conquest of Constantinople in 1203, 
given by Geoffrey de Villehardouin, seneschal of Champagne, what a space 
has been traversed, what progress accomplished in the language of France ! 
When the thirteenth century begins, the French language, though still rude 
and somewhat fluctuating, appears already rich, varied and capable of 
depicting with fidelity and energy events, ideas, characters, and the passions 
of men. 

Francis I.'s good-will did more for learned and classical literature than 
for poesy. He contributed to this progress, first by the intelligent sympathy 
he testified toward learned men of letters, and afterward by the foun- 
dation of the College Royal, an establishment of a special, an elevated and 
an independent sort, Avhere professors found a liberty protected against 
the routine, jealousy, and sometimes intolerance of the University of 
Paris and the Sorbonne. 

Nearly half a century before the Reformation made any noise in 
France, it had burst out with great force and had established its footing 
in Germany, Switzerland, and England. John Huss and Jerome of Prague, 
both born in Bohemia, one in 1373 and the other in 1378, had been 
condemned as heretics and burnt at Constance, one in 141 5 and the 
other in 1416, by the decree and in the presence o.f the council which 
had been there assembled. But, at the commencement of the sixteenth 
century, Luther in Germany and Zwingli in Switzerland had taken in 
hand the work of the Reformation, and before half that century had 
rolled by they had made the foundations of their new Church so strong 
that their powerful adversaries, with Charles V. at their head, felt obliged 
to treat with them, and recognized their position in the European world, 
though all the while disputing their right. The nascent Reformation did not 
meet in France with either of the two important circumstances, politically 
considered, which in Germany and in England rendered its first step? 



loo FRANCE.— THE REFORMATION. [1536 

more easy and more secure. It was in the cause of religious creeds alone, 
and by means of moral force alone, that she had to maintain the strug- 
gles in which she engaged. 

Luther and Zwingli had distinctly declared war on the papacy; 
Henry VIII. had with a flourish separated England from the Romish 
Church. Marguerite de Valois and Bishop Bricconnet neither wished nor 
demanded so much ; they aspired no further than to reform the abuses 
of the Romish Church by the authority of that Church itself, in concert 
with its heads, and according to its traditional regimen ; they had no 
idea of more than dealing kindly, and even sympathetically, with the 
liberties and the progress of science and human intelligence. Confined 
within these limits, the idea was legitimate and honest enough, but it 
showed want of foresight and was utterly vain. 

During the first years of Francis I.'s reign (from 15 15 to 1520) 
young and ardent reformers, such as William Farel and his friends, were 
but isolated individuals, eager after new ideas and studies, very favor- 
ble toward all that came to them from Germany, but without any 
consistency yet as a party, and without having committed any striking 
act of aggression against the Roman Church. 
\ Against such passions the reformers found Francis I. a very inde- 

cisive and very inefficient protector. " I wish," said he, " to give men 
of letters special marks of my favor." When deputies from the Sorbonne 
came and requested him to put down the publication of learned works 
taxed with heresy, "I do not wish," he replied, "to have those folks 
meddled with ; to persecute those who instruct us would be to keep 
men of ability from coming to our country." 

The defeat at Pavia and the captivity of the king at Madrid placed 
the governing power for thirteen months in the hands of the most 
powerful foes of the Reformation, the regent Louise of Savoy and the 
chancellor Duprat. They used it unsparingly, with the harsh indifference 
of politicians who will have, at any price, peace within their dominions 
and submission to authority. It was under their regimen that there 
took place the first martyrdom decreed and executed in France upon 
a partisan of the Reformation, for an act of aggression and offense against 
the Catholic Church, that, we mean, of John Leclerc, a wool-carder at 
Meaux, followed after a brief interval by the burning of Louis de Berquin, 
a gentleman of Artois. 

Marguerite alone continued to protect, timidly and dejectedly, those 
of her friends among the reformers whom she could help or to whom 
she could offer an asylum in Beam without embroiling herself with the 
king her brother and with the parliaments. 

During the long truce which succeeded the peace of Cambrai, from 
1532 to 1536,, it might have been thought for awhile that the perse- 
cution in France was going to be somewhat abated. Policy obliged 
Francis I. to seek the support of the Protestants of Germany against 



1547] FRANCE.— THE REFORMATION. loi 

Charles V.; he was incessantly fluctuating between that policy and a 
strictly Catholic and a papal policy. By marrying his son Henry, on the 
28th of October, 1533, to Catherine de' Medici, niece of Pope Clement 
VIL, he seemed to have decided upon the latter course; but he had 
afterward made a movement in the contrary direction. Clement VII. had 
died on the 26th of September, 1524; Paul III. had succeeded him; 
and Francis I. again turned toward the Protestants of Germany. The 
last and most atrocious act of persecution which occurred in his reign 
was directed not against isolated individuals, but against a harmless popu- 
lation, the Vaudois, who had for three centuries maintained religious 
doctrines of a strictly evangelical character. In 1540 they had been 
condemned as heretics, but their peaceful habits, the purity of their manners, 
and the regularity with which they paid the taxes, had induced the king 
to countermand the execution of the sentence. In April, 1545, however, 
precise and rigorous orders were transmitted from the court to the parlia- 
ment of Aix. Three thousand of these unhappy men were massacred or 
burnt in their dwellings ; six hundred and sixty were sent to the hulks, 
and the rest, dispersed throughout the woods and mountains, perished of 
want and of fatigue. It is said that Francis I., when near his end, repented 
of this odious extermination of a small population. Among his last words 
to his son Henry II. was an exhortation to cause an inquiry to be made 
into the iniquities committed by the parliament of Aix in this instance. 

It was quite clear that the reformation of the Church could be 
brought about only by a return to Gospel Christianity, and with this 
great movement the name of Calvin must ever be associated in France, 
as that of Luther is in Germany, and that of Zwingli in Switzerland. 
The publication of a treatise On Clemency shortly after his conversion 
(1532), and in the midst of the persecutions ordered by Francis I. against 
the first Huguenots, drew upon him some amount of notice. Obliged 
to leave the metropolis, he found a refuge at Nerac. From thence he 
went first to Basle, where he published his great work " Institution 
Chretienne'' (i535); then to Geneva, where Farel detained him; after- 
ward to Strasburg. In that city he remained till the year 1541, when 
the inhabitants of Geneva recalled him, in consequence of the defeat of 
his adversaries. Calvin remained at Geneva till his death (1564), exercising 
unlimited authority, and displaying all the qualities, not only of a divine 
and a pastoral adviser, but also of a stern civil ruler. 

In 1547, when the death of Francis I. was at hand, that ecclesias- 
tical organization of Protestantism which Calvin had instituted at Geneva 
was not even begun in France. The Reformation pursued its course; 
but a reformed Church did not exist. And this confused mass of reformers 
and reformed had to face an old, a powerful, and a strongly-constituted 
Church,, which looked upon the innovators as rebels over whom it had 
every right as much as against them it had every arm. Such was the 
position and such the state of feeling in which Francis I., at his death, 



I02 FRANCE.— THE REFORMATION. [1547 

on the 31st of March, 1547, left the two parties that had already been at 
grips during his reign. He had not succeeded either in reconciling them 
or in securing the triumph of that which had his favor. His sister Mar- 
guerite survived him two years [she died December 21st, 1549], "disgusted 
with everything," say the historians, and ''weary of life," said she herself. 

Henry H. had all the defects and, with the exception of personal 
bravery, not one among the brilliant and amiable qualities of the king his 
father. Like Francis I., he was rash and reckless in his resolves and enter- 
prises, but without having the promptness, the fertility and the suppleness 
of mind which Francis displayed in getting out of the awkward positions 
in which he had placed himself and in stalling off or mitigating the conse- 
quences of them. 

Toward the close of 1542, a grievous aggravation of the tax upon salt, 
called gabel, caused a violent insurrection in the town of Rochelle, which was 
exempted, it was said, by its traditional privileges from that impost. This 
was put down by the king. But the ordinances as to the salt-tax were 
maintained in principle, and their extension led, some years afterward, to a 
rising of a more serious character and very differently repressed. 

In 1548, hardly a year after the accession of Henry II. and in the midst 
of the rejoicings he had gone to be present at it in the north of Italy, he 
received news at Turin to the effect that in Guienne, Angoumois and 
Saintonge a violent and pretty general insurrection had broken out against the 
salt-tax, which Francis I., shortly before his death, had made heavier in these 
provinces. The local authorities in vain attempted to repress the rising, and 
it was put down in the most terrible manner by Constable de Montmorency. 
This insurrection was certainly more serious than that of Rochelle in 1542. 
In 1549, scarcely a year after the revolt at Bordeaux, Henry 11. , then at 
Amiens, granted to deputies from Poitou, Rochelle, the district of Aunis, 
Limousin, Perigord, and Saintonge, almost complete abolition of the gabel in 
Guienne, which paid the king, by way of compensation, two hundred thousand 
crowns of gDld for the expenses of war or the redemption of certain alienated 
domains. 

There was war in the atmosphere. The king and his advisers, the court 
and the people, had their minds almost equally full of it, some in sheer dread, 
and others with an eye to preparation. Two systems of policy and warfare, 
moreover, divided the king's council into two : Montmorency, now old and 
worn out in body and mind, Avas for a purely defensive attitude, no adventures 
or battles to be sought, but victuals and all sorts of supplies to be destroyed 
in the provinces which might be invaded by the enemy. But in 1550 a new 
generation had come into the world, the court, and the army ; it comprised 
young men full of ardor and already distinguished for their capacity and 
valor ; Francis de Lorraine, duke of Guise, was thirty-one ; his brother, 
Charles de Guise, cardinal of Lorraine, was only six-and-twenty ; Francis de 
Scepeaux, who afterward became Marshal de Vieilleville, was at this time 
nearly forty ; Gaspard de Coligny was thirty-three ; and his brother, Francis 



1556] FRANCE.— THE REFORMATION. 



10- 



d'Andelot, twenty-nine. These men, warriors and politicians at one and the 
same time, in a high social position and in the flower of their age, could not 
reconcile themselves to the Constable de Montmorency's system ; they thought 
that, in order to repair the reverses of France and for the sake of their own 
fame, there was something else to be done, and they impatiently awaited the 
opportunity. 

It was not long coming. At the close of 15 51, a deputation of the 
Protestant princes of Germany came to Fontainebleau to ask for the king's 
support against the aggressive and persecuting despotism of Charles V, Their 
request having been granted, the place of meeting for the army was appointed 
at Chalons-sur-Marne, March loth, 1552. The king entered Lorraine from 
Champagne by Joinville, the ordinary residence of the dukes of Guise. He car- 
ried Pont-a-Mousson ; Toul opened its gates to him on the 13th of April ; he 
occupied Nancy on the 14th, and on the i8th he entered Metz, not without 
some hesitation among a portion of the inhabitants and the necessity of a 
certain show of military force on the part of the leaders of the royal army. 
At that time the emperor was lying ill at Innspruck^ where he had gone for the 
purpose of w^atching more closely the deliberations of the council of Trent. 
On the point of being surprised in that city by Maurice of Saxony at the 
head of the Protestants he signed with these the treaty of Passau, afterward 
ratified at Augsburg (1552-55). Then he came to besiege Metz, which the 
duke of Guise successfully defended, displaying as much true courage as 
greatness of soul. 

During the next year (1553), Charles V., anxious to avenge the check 
which his forces had met with, invaded Artois, and burnt down the city of 
Therouanne, which has never since been rebuilt. A short time after, his 
army was defeated at Renty by Guise and Tuvannes. In the mean while, 
Marshal Brissac was holding his ground in Piedmont ; Strozzi, a Florentine in 
the service of France, and Montluc, defended in turns the town of Sienna, 
which, at last, was obliged to capitulate to the fierce Medichino ; the French 
fleet, commanded by Baron de la Garde, and combined with that of the Turks 
under the orders of Dragut, threatened the coasts of Calabria and of Sicily, 
ravaged the island of Elba, and captured some towns in Corsica, then 
belonging to the Genoese. 

These events decided Charles V. to abdicate. On the 25th of October, 
1555, and the ist of January, 1556, he gave over to his son Philip the kingdom 
of Spain, with the sovereignty of Burgundy and the Low Countries, and to 
his younger brother Ferdinand the empire, together with the original heritage 
of the house of Austria ; he then retired personally to the monastery of 
Yuste. Henry 11. also desired rest ; and the Constable de Montmorency 
wished above everything for the release of his son Francis, who had been a 
prisoner since the fall of Therouanne. A truce for five years was signed at 
Vaucelles on the 5th of February, 1556, and Coligny, quite young still, but 
already admiral and in high esteem, had the conduct of negotiation. 

Philip II. continued his father's policy, and took measures for promptly 



104 FRANCE.— THE REFORMATION. [1557 

entering upon a fresh campaign. By his marriage with Mary Tudor, queen 
of England, he had secured for himself a powerful ally in the north ; the 
queen's influence and the distrust excited in England by Henry H. prevailed 
over the pacific desires of the nation ; and Mary sent a simple herald to carry 
to the king of France at Reims her declaration of war. Henry accepted it 
politely but resolutely, A negotiation was commenced for accomplishing the 
marriage, long since agreed upon, between the young queen of Scotland, 
Mary Stuart, and Henry H.'s son, Francis, dauphin of France. The dauphin 
of France was a year younger than the Scottish princess ; on the 19th of 
April, 1558, the espousals took place in the great hall of the Louvre, and the 
marriage was celebrated in the church of Notre-Dame. 

In the mean while Henry II. made an alliance with Pope Paul IV., and 
sent two armies, one into the Netherlands, under the command of Montmo- 
Tency, the other into Italy, under that of the duke of Guise. Montmorency 
was thoroughly defeated at Saint-Quentin by the duke of Savoy, Philibert 
Emmanuel (1557), and the French general himself remained in the power of 
the enemy. Admiral Coligny held in check for seventeen days the victor 
before that town. Guise saved France, not by attacking the Spaniards, but 
by surprising Calais, which was, after eight days' siege, taken from the 
English, who had occupied it for the space of two hundred and eleven years. 
The news of this event was a death-blow for Mary. 

At last a treaty was signed at Cateau-Cambresis (1559) between Henry II. 
;and Elizabeth, who had become queen of England at the death of her sister 
Mary [November 17th, 1558] ; and next day, April 3d, between Henry II., 
Philip II. and the allied princes of Spain, among others the prince of Orange, 
William tlie Silent, who, while serving in the Spanish army, was fitting himself 
to become the leader of the reformers and the liberator of the Low Countries. 
The malcontents, for the absence of political liberty does not suppress them 
entirely, raised their voices energetically against this last treaty signed by the 
king,- with the sole desire, it was supposed, of obtaining the liberation of his 
two favorites, the Constable de Montmorency and Marshal de Saint-Andre, 
who had been prisoners in Spain since the defeat at Saint-Quentin. 

France was once more at peace with her neighbors, and seemed to have 
nothing more to do than to gather in the fruits thereof. But she had in her 
own midst questions far more difficult of solution than those of her external 
policy, and these perils from within were threatening her more seriously than 
any from without. In 1 561, it was calculated that there were two thousand 
one hundred and fifty reformed, or, as the expression then was, rectified 
{dressees), churches. It is clear that the movement of the Reformation in the 
sixteenth century was one of those spontaneous and powerful movements 
which have their source and derive their strength from the condition of men's 
souls and of whole communities, and not merely from the personal ambitions 
and interests which soon come and mingle with them, whether it be to 
promote or to retard them. All the resources of French civil jurisdiction 
appeared to be insufficient against the reformers. They held at Paris, in 



1559] FRANCE.— THE REFORMATION. 105 

May, 1559, their first general synod; and eleven fully established churches 
sent deputies to it. This synod drew up a form of faith called the Gallican 
Confession, and likewise a form of discipline. The king of Navarre, Anthony 
de Bo-urbon, Prince Louis de Conde, his brother, and many other lords had 
joined the new faith. The queen of Navarre, Jeanne d'Albret, in her early 
youth " was as fond of a ball as of a sermon," says Brantome, "and she had 
advised her spouse, Anthony de Bourbon, who inclined toward Calvinism, not 
to perplex himself with all these opinions." In 1559 she was passionately 
devoted to the faith and the cause of the Reformation. At last the 
Reformation had really great leaders, men who had power, and were 
experienced in the affairs of the world ; it was becoming a political party as 
well as a religious conviction, and the French reformers were henceforth in 
a condition to make war as well as die at the stake. 

On the 29th of June, 1559, a brilliant tournament was celebrated in lists 
erected at the end of the street of Saint-Antoine, almost at the foot of the 
Bastile. Henry II., the queen, and the whole court had been present at it for 
three days. The entertainment was drawing to a close. The king, who had 
run several tilts " like a sturdy and skillful cavalier," wished to break yet 
another lance, and bade the Count de Montgomery, captain of the guards, to 
run against him. Montgomery excused himself ; but the king insisted. The 
tilt took place. The two jousters, on meeting, broke their lances skillfully ; 
but Montgomery forgot to drop at once, according to usage, the fragment 
remaining in his hand ; he unintentionally struck the king's helmet arid raised 
the visor, and a splinter of wood entered Henry's eye, who fell forward upon 
his horse's neck. He languished for eleven days and expired on the lOth of 
July, 1559, aged forty years and some months. 




vm. 




THE WAES OF EELIGION. 



FRANCIS II. 1559 — HENRY III, 1 589. 



^URING the course, and especially at the close of 
Henry 11. 's reign, two rival matters — on the one 
hand the numbers, the quality and the zeal of the 
reformers, and on the other, the anxiety, prejudice, 
and power of the Catholics — had been simulta- 
neously advancing in development and growth. 
Between the i6th of May, 1558, and the loth of 



July, 1559, fifteen capital sentences had been executed in Dau- 
phiny, in Normandy, in Poitou, and at Paris. Two royal edicts, 
one dated July 24th, 1558, and the other June 14th, 1559, had 
renewed and aggravated the severity of penal legislation against 
heretics. To secure the registration of the latter, Henry H., 
together with the princes and the officers of the crown, had 
repaired in person to parliament ; some disagreement had already 
appeared in the midst of that great body, which was then com- 
posed of a hundred and thirty magistrates ; the seniors who sat in the great 
chamber had in general shown themselves to be more inclined to severity, 
and the juniors, who formed the chamber called La Tournelle, more inclined 
to indulgence toward accusations of heresy. The disagreement reached its 
climax in the very presence of the king. Two councillors, Dubourg and 
Dufaure, spoke so warmly of reforms which were, according to them, necessary 
and legitimate, that their adversaries did not hesitate to tax them with being 
reformers themselves. The king had them arrested and three of their 
colleagues with them. Such were the personal feelings and the relative posi- 
tions of the two parties when Francis H., a boy of sixteen, a poor creature 
both in mind and body, ascended the throne. The Constable de Montmorency 
and Henry H.'s favorite, Diana de Poitiers, were dismissed, the latter in a 
harsh manner, and the power remained in the hands of the queen-mother, 
Catherine de' Medici, advised by the Guises. 

The Guises were, in the sixteenth century, the representatives and the 
champions of the different cliques and interests, religious or political, sincere 
in their belief or shameless in their avidity, and all united under the flag of 
the Catholic Church. During the last six months of 1559 the edict issued by 
Henry H. from Ecouen was not only strictly enforced but aggravated by 



1560] FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. 107 

fresh edicts : a special chamber was appointed and chosen among the parlia- 
ment of Paris, which was to have sole cognizance of crimes and offenses 
against the Catholic religion. A proclamation of the new king, Francis 11. , 
ordained that houses in which assemblies of reformers took place should be 
razed and demolished. It was " death to the promoters of unlawful assemblies 
for purposes of religion or for any other cause." Another royal act provided 
that all persons, even relatives, who received among them any one condemned 
for heresy, should seize him and bring him to justice, in default whereof they 
would suffer the same penalty as he. Individual condemnations and execu- 
tions abounded after these general measures ; between the 2d of August and 
the 31st of December, 1559, eighteen persons were burned alive for open 
heresy, or for having refused to communicate according to the rites of the 
Catholic Church or go to mass, or for having hawked about forbidden books. 
Finally, in December, the five councillors of the parliament of Paris whom, 
six months previously, Henry II. had ordered to be arrested and shut up in 
the Bastile, were dragged from prison and brought to trial. The chief of 
them, Anne Dubourg, was condemned on the 22d of December, and put to 
death the next day in the Place de Greve. 

Apart from, we do not mean to say above, the two great parties which 
were arrayed in the might and appeared as the representatives of the national 
ideas and feelings, the queen-mother, Catherine de' Medici, was quietly labor- 
ing to form another, a party strictly Catholic, but regarding as a necessity the 
task of humoring the reformers and granting them such concessions as might 
prevent explosions fraught with peril to the State. The Constable de Mont- 
morency sometimes issued forth from Chantilly to go and aid the queen- 
mother, in whom he had no confidence, but whom he preferred to the Guises. 
A former councillor of the parliament, for a long while chancellor under 
Francis I. and Henry II., and again summoned under Francis II. by Catherine 
de' Medici to the same post, Francis Olivier, was an honorable executant of 
the party's indecisive but moderate policy. He died on the 15th of March, 
1560 ; and Catherine, in concert with the cardinal of Lorraine, had the chan- 
cellorship thus vacated conferred upon Michael de I'Hospital, a magistrate 
already celebrated and destined to become still more so. 

A few months, and hardly so much, after the accession of Francis II., a 
serious matter brought into violent collision the three parties. The suprem- 
acy of the Guises was insupportable to the reformers and irksome to many 
lukewarm or wavering members of the Catholic nobility. The crown refused 
to pay its most lawful debts, and duns were flocking to the court. To get 
rid of them, the cardinal of Lorraine had a proclamation issued by the king, 
warning all persons, of whatever condition, who had come to dun for payment 
of debts, for compensations or for graces, to take themselves off within twenty- 
four hours on pain of being hanged ; and, that it might appear how seriously 
meant the threat was, a very conspicuous gibbet was erected at Fontainebleau 
close to the palace. This affront led the Huguenots, assisted by the other 
malcontents, to form a scheme whereby the king should be seized, placed 



io8 FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. [1560 

under a kind of surveillance, and the power of the Lorraine princes destroyed 
forever. Conde was evidently at the head of the plot, but the management 
of the whole affair was entrusted to a Perigord gentilhonune, Godefroid de 
Barry, sieur de la Renaudie. The court was then at Blois, and on rumors 
being spread abroad of the discovery of a plot, Francois de Guise suddenly 
removed the king to Amboise, which could more easily be defended against 
a coup de main. The lords and gentlemen attached to the court made sallies 
all around Amboise to prevent any unexpected attack. On the i8th of March, 
La Renaudie, who was scouring the country, seeking to rally his men, encoun- 
tered a body of royal horse who were equally hotly in quest of the conspirators ; 
the two detachm.ents attacked one another furiously ; La Renaudie was killed, 
and his body, which was carried to Amboise, was strung up to a gallows on 
the bridge over the Loire with this scroll : " This is La Renaudie, called La 
Forest, captain of the rebels, leader and author of the sedition." The impor- 
tant result of the riot of Amboise {tumultc d' Amboise), as it was called, was an 
ordinance of Francis II., who, on the 17th of March, 1560, appointed Duke 
Francis of Guise " his lieutenant-general, representing him in person absent 
and present in this good town of Amboise and other places of the realm." 

The Guises made a cruel use of their easy victory ; " for a whole month," 
according to contemporary chronicles, "there was nothing but hanging or- 
drowning folks. The Loire was covered with corpses strung, six, eight, ten 
and fifteen, to long poles. . . ." There was, throughout a considerable portion 
of the country, a profound feeling of indignation against the Lorraine princes. 
On all sides there was a demand for the convocation of the States-general.. 
The Guises and the queen-mother, who dreaded this great and independent 
national power, attempted to satisfy public opinion by caUing an assembly of 
notables, not at all numerous, and chosen by themselves. It was summoned 
to meet on August 21st, 1560, at Fontainebleau, in the apartments of the 
queen-mother. The cardinal of Lorraine having given his consent to the 
holding of the States-general, his opinion was adopted by the king, the queen- 
mother and the assemblage. An edict, dated August 26th, convoked a meet- 
ing of the States-general at Meaux on the loth of December following. 
Meanwhile, it was announced that the punishment of sectaries would, for the 
present, be suspended, but that the king reserved to himself and his judges 
the right of severely chastising those who had armed the populace and kindled 
sedition. 

The elections to the States-general were very stormy ; all parties displayed 
the same ardor. Despite the entreaties of their staunchest friends, the king 
of Navarre and Conde came to Orleans. The Guises, who had sufificient proofs- 
against the latter, caused him to be arrested as soon as he had entered the 
town, and wished to murder Navarre, whom they could not get rid of by legal 
means. At the appointed moment, however, Francois refused to give the 
signal, and so this part of the scheme failed. In the mean while a special com- 
mission had been named to try Conde ; he was condemned to death, and 
would have certainly perished had not the courageous L'Hospital refused to 



1561] FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. 109 

sign the sentence. Thus some time was gained, and as the king was on his 
death-bed a short delay proved the salvation of Conde's life. Francis II. died 
on the 5th of December; he had reigned seventeen months. 

Men were wonderfully far from understanding the principle of religious 
liberty in 1560, at the accession of Charles IX., a child ten years old. Around 
that royal child, and seeking to have the mastery over France by being 
masters over him, were struggling the three great parties at that time occupy- 
ing the stage in the name of religion : the Catholics rejected altogether the 
idea of religious liberty for the Protestants ; the Protestants had absolute 
need of it, for it was their condition of existence ; but they did not wish for 
it in the case of the Catholics their adversaries. The third party {tiers parti), 
as we call it nowadays, wished to hold the balance continually wavering 
between the Catholics and the Protestants, conceding to the former and the 
latter, alternately, that measure of liberty v/hich was indispensable for most 
imperfect maintenance of the public peace and reconcilable with the sover- 
eign power of the kingship. On such conditions was the government of 
Charles IX. to establish its existence. 

The new king, on announcing to the parliament the death of his brother, 
wrote to them that '* confiding in the virtues and prudence of the queen- 
mother, he had begged her to take in hand the administration of the king- 
dom, with the wise counsel and advice of the king of Navarre, and the 
notables and great personages of the ■ late king's council." A few months 
afterward the States-general, assembling first at Orleans and afterward at 
Pontoise, ratified this declaration by recognizing the placing of " the young king 
Charles IX. 's guardianship in the hands of Catherine de' Medici, his mother, 
together with the principal direction of affairs, but without the title of regent." 

The power really belonged to Catherine de' Medici, if she had only known 
how to keep it. She, however, merely took it away from the heads of the 
Guises, chiefs of the Catholic party, but did not make any use of it herself. 
Guise soon recovered the influence he had lost at first, and the court rendered 
this easy for him by publishing the edicts of Saint Germain, favorable to the 
Huguenots, and by admitting the divines of the Protestant persuasion to a 
solemn discussion at the coUoque of Poissy. While the Calvinists were 
revolting at Nismes, the followers of the Duke de Guise massacred a company 
of Protestants at Vassy in Champagne (1562). The civil war was then begun. 

From 1 561 to 1572 there were in France eighteen or twenty massacres of 
Protestants, four or five of Catholics, and thirty or forty single murders sufifi- 
ciently important to have been kept in remembrance by history. 

The first religious war, under Charles IX., appeared on the point of 
breaking out in April, 1561 ; some days after that the duke of Guise, returning 
from the massacre of Vassy, had entered Paris, on the i6th of March, in 
triumph. The queen-mother, in dismay, carried off the king to Melun at first, 
and then to Fontainebleau, while the prince of Conde, having retired to 
Meaux, summoned to his side his relatives, his friends, and all the leaders of 
the reformers. For some days Catherine and L'Hospital tried to remain out 



no FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. [1563 

of Paris with the young king, whom Guise, the Constable de Montmorency 
and the king of Navarre went to demand back from them. They were obHged 
to submit to the pressure brought to bear upon them. The constable was the 
first to enter Paris, and went, on the 2d of April, and burnt down the two 
places of worship which, by virtue of the decree of January 17th, 1561, had 
been granted to the Protestants. A council was assembled at the Louvre to 
deliberate as to the declaration of war, which was deferred. While the king 
was on his way back to Paris, Conde hurried off to take up his quarters at 
Orleans, whither Coligny went promptly to join him. They signed with the 
gentlemen who came to them from all parts a compact of association " for the 
honor of God, for the liberty of the king, his brothers and the queen-mother, 
and for the maintenance of decrees ; " and Conde, in writing to the Protestant 
princes of Germany to explain to them his conduct, took the title of protector 
of the house and crown of France, Negotiations still went on for nearly three 
months. The chiefs of the two parties attempted to offer one another gener- 
ous and pacific solutions. Neither party liked to acknowledge itself beaten 
in this way, without having struck a blow. 

On both sides was displayed equal enthusiasm ; the first armies that were 
raised distinguished themselves by the utmost strictness ; no debauchery, no 
gambling, no swearing ; religious worship morning and evening. But under 
these externals of piety the hearts retained all their cruelty. Montluc, gov- 
ernor of Guienne, went about accompanied by a band of executioners. In the 
province of Dauphine, a Protestant chieftain. Baron des Adrets, retaliated in 
the most cruel manner. He obliged his prisoners to throAV themselves down 
from the top of a high tower on the pikes and spears of his soldiers. 

Guise was, first, conqueror at Dreux ; he made a prisoner of Conde, gen- 
eral of the Protestant army, and gave on that occasion proofs of a generosity 
which could scarcely have been expected under such circumstances. 

The results of the battle of Dreux were serious, and still more serious 
from the fate of the chiefs than from the number of the dead. The comman- 
ders of the two armies, the Constable de Montmorency and the prince of 
Conde, were wounded and prisoners. One of the triumvirs, Marshal de Saint- 
Andre, had been killed in action. The Catholics' wavering ally, Anthony de 
Bourbon, king of Navarre, had died before the battle of a wound which he 
had received at the siege of Rouen ; and on his death-bed had resumed his 
Protestant bearing, saying that, if God granted him grace to get well, he 
would have nothing but the Gospel preached throughout the realm. Orleans 
was at that time the principal stronghold of the Protestant party ; it would 
certainly have been taken but for the assassination of Guise whom the Protest- 
ant gentleman Poltrot de Mere shot in the most treacherous manner (1563). 
Arrested, removed to Paris, put to the torture and questioned by the commis- 
sioners of parliament, Poltrot at one time confirmed and at another disavowed 
his original assertions. Coligny, he said, had not suggested the project to 
' 'm, but had cognizance of it, and had not attempted to deter him. The 
' cree sentenced Poltrot to the punishment of regicides. He underwent it 



-1567] FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. m 

on the 1 8th of March, 1563, in the Place de Greve, preserving to the very end 
that fierce energy of hatred and vengeance which had prompted his deed. 

Negotiations were entered into with the two captive generals, the prince of 
■Conde and the Constable de Montmorency; and, on the 19th of March, 
peace was concluded at Amboise in the form of an edict which granted to 
the Protestants the concessions recognized as indispensable by the crown 
itself, and regulated the relations of the two creeds, pending " the remedy of 
time, the decisions of a holy council, and the king's majority." The 
burgesses were treated less favorably ; the reformed worship was maintained 
in the towns in which it had been practiced up to the 7th of March in the 
■current year ; but beyond that and noblemen's mansions, this worship might 
not be celebrated, save in the faubourgs of one single town in every bailiwick 
■or seneschalty. Paris and its district were to remain exempt from any 
••exercise " of the said reformed religion." 

During the negotiations, and as to the very basis of the edict of March 
19th, 1563, the Protestants were greatly divided: the soldiers and the 
politicians, with Conde at their head, desired peace, and thought that the 
• concessions made by the Catholics ought to be accepted. The majority of 
the reformed pastors and theologians cried out against the insufficiency of 
the concessions, and were astonished that there should be so much hurry to 
make peace when the Catholics had just lost their most formidable captain. 
It was not long before facts put the malcontents in the right. Between 1563 
and 1567 murders of distinguished Protestants increased strangely, and 
excited among their families anxiety, accompanied by a thirst for vengeance. 
The Guises and their party, on their side, persisted in their outcries for 
proceedings against the instigators, known or presumed, of the murder of 
Duke Francis. It was plainly against Admiral de Coligny that these cries 
were directed ; the king and the queen-mother could find no other way of 
stopping an explosion than to call the matter on before the privy council and 
■ cause to be there drawn up, on the 29th of January, 1566, a solemn decree 
■" declaring the admiral's innocence on his own affirmation, given in the 
presence of the king and the council as before God himself, that he had not 
had anything to do with or approved of the said homicide." 

At the same time that the war was proceeding among the provinces with 
this passionate doggedness, royal decrees were alternately confirming and 
suppressing or weakening the securities for liberty and safety which the 
'decree of Amboise, on the 19th of March, 1563, had given to the Protestants 
by way of re-establishing peace. Even Conde could not delude himself any 
longer. He quitted the court to take his stand again with his own party. In 
September, 1567, the second religious war broke out. 

It was short and not decisive for either party. At the outset of the 
•campaign, success was with the Protestants ; forty towns opened their gates 
to them or fell into their hands. They were within an ace of surprising the 
king at Monceaux, and he never forgot, says Montluc, that " the Protestants 
iiad made him do the stretch from Meaux to Paris at something more than a 



i!2 FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. [1568' 

walk." Defeated at St. Denis (November loth, 1567), but still powerful,. 
Coligny and Conde imposed upon the court the peace of Longjumeau (1568)^ 
confirming the terms of that of Amboise. 

Scarcely six months having elapsed, in August, 1568, the third religious 
war broke out. The written guarantees given in the treaty of Longjumeau. 
for security and liberty on behalf of the Protestants were misinterpreted or 
violated. Massacres and murders of Protestants became more numerous, and 
were committed with more impunity than ever: in 1568 and 1569, at Amiens,. 
at Auxerre, at Orleans, at Rouen, at Bourges, at Troyes, and at Blois,, 
Protestants, at one time to the number of 140 or 120, or 53, or 40, and at 
another singly, with just their wives and children, were massacred, burnt, and 
hunted, by the excited populace, without any intervention on the part of the 
magistrates to protect them or to punish their murderers. 

The queen-mother attempted to take possession of the two Protestant 
leaders ; Conde, however, managed to enter La Rochelle. The Protestant 
nobles of Saintonge and Poitou flocked in. A royal ally was announced ; the 
queen of Navarre, Jeanne d'Albret, was bringing her son Henry, fifteen years, 
of age, who.m she was training up to be Henry IV. Conde went to meet 
them, and, on the 28th of September, 1568, all this flower of French Prot- 
estantism was assembled at La Rochelle, ready and resolved to strike another 
blov/ for the cause of religious liberty. 

It was the longest and most serious of the four wars of this kind which 
so profoundly agitated France in the reign of Charles IX. This one lasted 
from the 24th of August, 1568, to the 8th of August, 1570, between the 
departure of Conde and Coligny for La Rochelle and the treaty of peace of 
St. Germain-en-Laye : a hollow peace, like the rest, and only two years before 
the St. Bartholomew. On starting from Noyers with Coligny, Conde had 
addressed to the king, on the 23d of August, a letter. Convinced that he 
would not succeed in preserving France from a fresh civil war, the chancellor 
De I'Hospital made up his mind to withdraw, and with him all moderation 
departed from the councils of the king. 

During the two years that it lasted, from August, 1568, to August, 1570,. 
the third religious war under Charles IX. entailed two important battles and 
many deadly faction-fights, which spread and inflamed to the highest pitch the 
passions of the two parties. Notwithstanding their defeat at Jarnac and 
Moncontour (1569), notwithstanding the death of Conde and the wound of 
Coligny, the Protestants were still able to obtain from their enemies a 
favorable peace. The negotiations were short. The war had been going on 
for two years. The two parties, victorious and vanquished by turns, were 
both equally sick of it. Peace was concluded at St. Germain-en-Laye on the 
8th of August, 1570, and it was more equitable and better for the reformers 
than the preceding treaties. All the members of the parliament, all the royal 
and municipal ofificers and the principal inhabitants of the towns where the 
two religions existed were further bound over on oath " to maintenance of the 
edict." 



J 572] FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. 113 

Peace was made ; but it was the third in seven years, and very shortly 
rafter each new treaty civil war had recommenced. No more was expected 
from the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye than had been effected by those of 
Amboise and Longjumeau, and on both sides men sighed for something more 
-.stable and definitive. 

There had already, thirteen or fourteen years previously, been some talk 
.about a marriage between Henry of Navarre and Marguerite de Valois, each 
born in 1553. This union between the two branches of the royal house, one 
Catholic and the other Protestant, ought to have been the most striking sign 
and the surest pledge of peace between Catholicism and Protestantism. 
Charles IX. embraced the idea passionately, being the only means, he said, of 
putting a stop at last to this incessantly renewed civil war, which was the 
plague of his life as well as of his kingdom. He readily gave way, in 
Coligny's company, to outpourings which had all the appearance of perfect 
and involuntary frankness ; and even seemed to entertain seriously the idea 
•of sending an army to the relief of the persecuted Protestants in the 
Netherlands. This tone of freedom and confidence had inspired Coligny 
with reciprocal confidence ; he believed himself to have a decisive influence 
•over the king's ideas and conduct. 

Without giving either to Catherine de' Medici or to her sons the honor 
■of either so long a course of dissimulation or of so cunningly arranged a 
stratagem, it is not unnatural to believe that while conceding the advan- 
tageous terms of the peace of Saint-Germain, they looked forward ultimately 
to something like the horrible tragedy of Saint Bartholomew's day ; and yet 
we may reasonably question even if the massacre would have taken place, 
had not the Catholics dreaded the influence which Coligny seemed about to 
-assume over the weak mind of the king. Catherine and the Duke d'Anjou 
in their turn, and as a last resource, worked upon the feelings of that 
wretched monarch, and finally led him to sanction the massacre of the 
Protestants just as easily as he would have done that of the principal 
Catholic leaders. 

On Friday the 22d of August, 1572, Coligny was returning on foot from 
the Louvre to the Rue des Fosses-St.-Germain-l'Auxerrois, where he lived ; 
he was occupied in reading a letter, which he had just received ; a shot, fired 
from the window of a house in the cloister of St. Germain-l'Auxerrois, 
smashed two fingers of his right hand and lodged a ball in his left arm ; he 
raised his eyes, pointed out with his injured hand the house whence the shot 
liad come, and reached his quarters on foot. Two gentlemen who were in 
.attendance upon him rushed to seize the murderer; it was too late. 

Coligny sent to apprise the king of what had just happened to him : 
-" There," said he, " was a fine proof of fidelity to the agreement between 
him and the duke of Guise." " I shall never have rest, then ! " cried Charles, 
breaking the .stick with which he was playing tennis with the duke of Guise 
^nd Teligny, the admiral's son-in-law ; and he immediately returned to his 



114 FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. [157^- 

room. The duke of Guise took himself off without a word. TeHgny 
speedily joined his father-in-law. 

About 2 P.M. the king, the queen-mother, and the dukes of Anjou' 
and Alencon, her two other sons, with many of their high officers, repaired to • 
the admiral's. " My dear father," said the king as he went in, " the hurt is 
yours ; the grief and the outrage mine ; but I will take such vengeance that 
it shall never be forgotten," to which he added his usual imprecations. 

Saturday passed quietly. On Sunday, August 24th, between two and 
three o'clock in the morning, Cosseins, the commander of the king's guards,.. 
Besme, a servant of the Duke de Guise, and several others, broke open the- 
door of Coligny's house, and forced their way into his bed-room, where Besme.- 
plunged a sword into his bosom, the rest dispatched him with their daggers., 
and Besme called out of the window to the Duke de Guise, who, with other- 
Catholics, was waiting in the court below, " It is done." At the command of 
the duke, the body was then thrown out of the window to him, when, having" 
wiped away the blood to see his features, he said, " It is he himself," and 
then gave a kick to " that venerable face, which when alive was dreadful to all 
the murderers of France." Now the great bell of the palace, and the bell of 
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois were answered by the bells of all the churches, the 
Swiss guards were under arms, and the city militia poured through the streets^ 
Once let loose, the Parisian populace was eager indeed, but not alone in its. 
eagerness, for the work of massacre ; the gentlemen of the court took part in 
it passionately, from a spirit of vengeance, from religious hatred, from the 
effect of smelling blood, from covetousness at the prospect of confiscations at 
hand. Teligny, the admiral's son-in-law, had taken refuge on a roof ; the: 
duke of Anjou's guards made him a mark for their arquebuses. La. 
Rochefoucauld, with whom the king had been laughing and joking up to= 
eleven o'clock the evening before, heard a knocking at his door, in the king's, 
name ; it is opened ; enter six men in masks and poniard him. The new- 
queen of Navarre, Marguerite de Valois, had gone to bed by express order of 
her mother Catherine : " Just as I was asleep," says she, " behold a man. 
knocking with feet and hands at the door and shouting, ' Navarre ! Navarre ! * 
My nurse, thinking it was the king my husband, runs quickly to the door and 
opens it. It was a gentleman named M, de Leran, who had a sword-cut on. 
the elbow, a gash from a halberd on the arm, and was still pursued by four- 
archers, who all came after him into my bed-room. We both screamed, and 
each of us was as much frightened as the other. At last it pleased God that: 
M. de Nancy, captain of the guards, came in, who, finding me in this plight,, 
though he felt compassion, could not help laughing ; and, flying into a great 
rage with the archers for this indiscretion, he made them begone and gave me 
the life of that poor man, who had hold of me, whom I had put to bed and. 
attended to in my closet, until he was well." 

When he had plunged into the orgies of the massacre, when, after 
having said " Kill them all ! " he had seen the slaughter of his companions ia. 
his royal amusements, Teligny and La Rochefoucauld, Charles IX. abandoned 



1573] FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. 115 

himself to a fit of mad passion. He was asked whether the two young 
Huguenot princes, Henry of Navarre and Henry de Conde, were to be killed 
also; Marshal de Retx had been in favor of it; Marshal de Tavannes had 
been opposed to it ; and it was decided to spare them. 

The historians, Catholic or Protestant, contemporary or researchful, differ 
widely as to the number of the victims in this cruel massacre ; according to 
De Thou, there were about two thousand persons killed in Paris the first day; 
D'Aubigne says three thousand ; Brantome speaks of four thousand bodies 
that Charles IX. might have seen floating down the Seine ; La Popelinicre 
reduces them to one thousand. The uncertainty is still greater when one 
comes to speak of the number of victims throughout the whole of France : 
De Thou estimates it at thirty thousand, Sully at seventy thousand, Pcrefixe, 
archbishop of Paris in the seventeenth century, raises it to one hundred 
thousand; Papirius Masson and Davila reduce it to ten thousand, without 
clearly distinguishing between the massacre of Paris and those of the prov- 
inces ; other historians fix upon forty thousand. One thing which is quite 
true and which it is good to call to mind in the midst of so great a general 
criminality is that, at many spots in France, it met with a refusal to be associ- 
ated in it ; President Jeannin at Dijon, the Count de Tende in Provence, 
Philibert de la Guiche at Macon, Tanneguy le Veneur de Carrouge at Rouen, 
the Count de Gordes in Dauphiny, and many other chiefs, military or civil, 
openly repudiated the example set by the murderers of Paris ; and the 
municipal body of Nantes, a very Catholic town, took upon this subject a 
resolution which does honor to its patriotic firmness as well as to its Christian 
loyalty. 

A great, good man, a great functionary and a great scholar, in disgrace 
for six years past, the chancellor Michael de I'Hospital, gave in his resignation 
on the 1st of February, 1573, and died six weeks afterward, on the 18th of 
March. 

All this policy, at one and the same time violent and timorous, incoherent 
and stubborn, produced among the Protestants two contrary effects : some 
grew frightened, others angry. At court, under the direct influence of the 
king and his surroundings, " submission to the powers that be " prevailed ; 
many fled ; others without abjuring their religion, abjured their party. The 
two reformer-princes, Henry of Navarre and Henry de Conde, attended mass 
on the 29th of September, and, on the 3d of October, wrote to the pope 
deploring their errors and giving hopes of their conversion. Far away from 
Paris, in the mountains of the Pyrenees and of Languedoc, in the towns 
where the reformers were numerous and confident, at Sancerre, at Montauban, 
at Nimes, at La Rochelle, the spirit of resistance carried the day. In Novem- 
ber, 1572, the fourth religious war broke out. 

The siege of La Rochelle was its only important event. Charles IX. 
and his councillors exerted themselves in vain to avoid it. There was every- 
thing to disquiet them in this enterprise: so sudden a revival of the religious 
war after the grand blow they had just struck, the passionate energy 



ii6 FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. [1573 

manifested by the Protestants in asylum at La Rochelle, and the help they 
had been led to hope for from Queen Elizabeth, whom England would never 
have forgiven for indifference in this cause. 

The siege lasted from the 26th of February to the 13th of June, 1573; 
six assaults were made on the place ; in the last, the ladders had been set at 
night against the wall of what was called Gospel bastion ; the duke of Guise, 
at the head of the assailants, had escaladed the breach, but there he discov- 
ered a new ditch and a ncAv rampart erected inside ; and, confronted by these 
unforeseen obstacles, the men recoiled and fell back. La Rochelle was saved. 
Charles IX. was more and more desirous of peace; his brother, the duke of 
Anjou, had just been elected king of Poland; Charles IX. was anxious 
for him to leave France, and go to take possession of his new kingdom. 
Thanks to these complications, the peace of La Rochelle was signed on the 
6th day of July, 1573. Liberty of creed and worship was recognized in the 
three towns of La Rochelle, Montauban and Nimes. They were not obliged 
to receive any royal garrison, on condition of giving hostages to be kept by 
the king for two years. 

Certainly this was not what the king had calculated upon when he con- 
sented to the massacre of the Protestants : " Provided," he had said, " that 
not a single one is left to reproach me." In the spring of 1574, at the age of 
twenty-three years and eleven months, and after a reign of eleven years and 
six months, Charles IX. was attacked by an inflamm.atory malady, which 
brought on violent hemorrhage ; he was revisited, in his troubled sleep, by 
the same bloody visions about which, a fev/ days after, the St. Bartholomew, 
he had spoken to his physician, Ambrose Pare, He no longer retained in his 
room anybody but two of his servants and his nurse, " of whom he was very 
fond, although she was a Huguenot," says the contemporary chronicler Peter dc 
I'Estoile. " When she had lain down upon a chest and was just beginning to 
doze, hearing the king moaning, weeping and sighing, she went full gently up 
to the bed : ' Ah ! nurse, nurse,' said the king, ' what bloodshed and what mur- 
ders ! Ah ! what evil counsel have I followed ! Oh ! my God, forgive me 
them and have mercy upon me, if it may please Thee ! I know not what hath 
come to me, so bewildered and agitated do they make me. What will be 
the end of it all? What shall I do? I am lost; I see it well.' Then said the 
nurse to him : * Sir, the murders be on the heads of those who made you do 
them ! But, for God's sake, let your Majesty cease weeping ! ' And thereupon, 
having been to fetch him a pocket-handkerchief because his own was soaked 
with tears, after that the king had taken it from her hand, he signed to her to 
go away and leave him to his rest." 

On Sunday, May 30th, 1574, Whitsunday, about three in the afternoon, 
Charles IX. expired, after having signed an ordinance conferring the regency 
upon his mother Catherine, *' who accepted it," was the expression in the let- 
ters patent, "at the request of the duke of Alencon, the king of Navarre, and 
other princes and peers of France." 

Though elected king of Poland on the 9th of May, 1573, Henry, duke of 



1575] FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. 117 

Anjou, had not yet left Paris at the end of the summer. Having arrived in 
Poland on the 25th of January, 1574, and being crowned at Cracow on the 
24th of February, Henry had been scarcely four months king of Poland when 
he was apprised, about the middle of June, that his brother Charles had lately 
died, on the 30th of May, and that he was king of France. " Do not waste 
your time in deliberating," said his French advisers : '* you must go and take 
possession of the throne of France without abdicating that of Poland; go at 
once and without fuss." Henry followed this counsel. Having started from 
Cracow on the i8th of June, 1574, he did not arrive until the 5th of Septem- 
ber at Lyons. 

It was in a condition of disorganization and red-hot anarchy that Henry 
III. on his return from Poland, and after the St. Bartholomew, found France; 
it w^as in the face of all these forces, full of life, but scattered and excited one 
against another, that, with the aid of his mother Catherine, he had to re- 
establish unity in the State, the efficiency of the government and the public 
peace. 

Henry and Catherine aspired to no more than resuming their policy of 
maneuvering and wavering between the two parties engaged in the struggle; 
but it was not for so poor a result that the ardent Catholics had committed 
the crime of the St. Bartholomew; they promised themselves from it the 
decisive victory of their Church and of their supremacy. Henry de Guise 
came forward as their leader in this grand design. When, in 1575, first the 
duke of Anjou and after him the king of Navarre were seen flying from the 
court of Henry III. and commencing an insurrection with the aid of a consid- 
erable body of German auxiliaries and French refugees already on French 
soil and on their way across Champagne, the peril of the Catholic Church 
appeared so grave and so urgent that, in the threatened provinces, the 
Catholics devoted themselves with ardor to the formation of a grand 
associatiori_ for the defense of their cause. Then and thus was really born 
tJie League, secret at first, but, before long, publicly and openly proclaimed, 
which held so important a place in the histor}^ of the sixteenth century. 
Henry de Guise did not hesitate to avow the league and labor to propagate 
it; he did what was far more effectual for its success: he entered the field and 
gained a victory. The German allies and French refugees, who had come to 
support Prince Henry de Conde and the duke of Anjou in their insurrection, 
advanced into Champagne. Guise had nothing ready, neither army nor 
money ; he mustered in haste three thousand horse who were to be followed 
by a body of foot and a moiety of the king's guards. He set out in pursuit 
of the Germans, came up with them on the loth of October, 1575, at Port-a- 
jBinspn.,_ on the Marne, and ordered them to be attacked by his brother, the 
duke of Mayenne, whom he supported vigorously. They were broken and 
routed. He had himself been wounded: he went in obstinate pursuit of a 
mounted foe whom he had twice touched with his sword, and who, in return, 
had fired two pistol-shots, of which one took effect in the leg, and the other 



ii8 FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. [1576 

carried away part of his cheek and his left ear. Thence came his name of 
Henry the Scarred {le Balafre) which has clung to him in history. 

Admiral Coligny was succeeded by the king of Navarre, who was; 
destined to become Henry IV. ; and Duke Francis of Guise by his son Henry, 
if not as able, at any rate as brave a soldier, and a more determined Catholic 
than he. Among the Protestants, Sully and Du Plessis-Mornay were 
assuming shape and importance by the side of the king of Navarre. 

This state of things continued for twelve years, from 1576 to 1588, with 
constant alternations of war, truce, and precarious peace, and in the midst of 
constant hesitation on the part of Henry III., between alliance with the 
league, commanded by the duke of Guise, and adjustment with the Protest- 
ants, of whom the king of Navarre was every day becoming the more and 
more avowed leader. Between 1576 and 1580, four treaties of peace were 
concluded: in 1576, the peace called Monsieur s, signed at Chastenay in 
Orleanness ; in 1577, the peace of Bergerac or of Poitiers; in 1579, ^^^ 
peace of Nerac ; in 1580, the peace of Fleix in Perigord. In November, 
1576, the States-general were convoked and assembled at Blois, where they sat 
and deliberated up to March, 1577, without any important result. At heart, 
neither Protestants nor Catholics were for accepting mutual liberty; not only 
did they both consider themselves in possession of all religious truth, but they 
also considered themselves entitled to impose it by force upon their adversa- 
ries. 
■\ From 1576 to 1588, Henry III. had seen the difficulties of his govern- 

ment continuing and increasing. On the loth of June in that year, Henry 
III. s brother, the duke of Anjou, died at Chateau-Thierry. By this death,, 
the leader of the Protestants, Henry, king of Navarre, became lawful heir to 
the throne of France. The Leaguers could not stomach that prospect. The 
Guises turned it to formidable account. They did not hesitate to make the 
future of France a subject of negotiation with Philip II. of Spain, at that 
time her most dangerous enemy in Europe. By a secret convention conclud- 
ed at Joinville, on the 31st of December, 1584, between Philip and the Guises, 
it was stipulated that at the death of Henry III. the crown should pass 'to 
Charles, cardinal of Bourbon, sixty-four years of age, the king of Navarre's 
uncle, who, in order to make himself king, undertook to set aside his 
nephew's hereditary right and forbid, absolutely, heretical worship in France. 
On the 7th of July, 1585, a treaty was concluded at Nemours between Henry 
III. and the league, to the effect "that by an irrevocable edict the practice of 
the new religion should be forbidden, and that there should henceforth be no 
other practice of religion, throughout the realm of France, save that of the 
Catholic, Apostolic and Roman ; that all the ministers should depart from the 
kingdom within a month." 

This treaty was signed by all the negotiators, and specially by the queen- 
mother, the cardinals of Bourbon and Guise, and the dukes of Guise and 
Mayenne. It was the decisive act which made the war a Vv^ar of religion. 

Before taking part in the war which was day by day becoming more and 



I5S6J FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. n^ 

more clearly and explicitly a war of religion, the Protestant princes of Ger- 
many and the four great free cities of Strasbourg, Ulm, Nuremberg and 
Frankfort resolved to make, as the king of Navarre had made, a stdking- 
move on behalf of peace and religious liberty. They sent to Henry III. 
ambassadors who, on the nth of October, 1586, treated him to some frank 
and bold speaking, but obtained no satisfactory answer. 

Except some local and short-lived truces, war was already blazing- 
throughout nearly the whole of France, in Provence, in Dauphiny, in Nivcr- 
nais, in Guienne, in Anjou, in Normandy, in Picardy, in Champagne. The 
successes of Henry de Guise (Vimory, October 28th; Auneau, November 
24th), and of Henry de Bourbon (Coutras, October 20th), were almost equal- 
ly disagreeable to Henry de Valois. He considered the Protestants less 
powerful and less formidable than the Leaguers. Henry de Guise, on the 
contrary, was evidently, in his eyes, an ambitious conspirator, determined ta 
push his own fortunes onto the very crown of France. Since 1584, the 
Leaguers had, at Paris, acquired strong organization among the populace ; 
the city had been partitioned out into five districts under five heads, who,, 
shortly afterward, added to themselves eleven others, in order that, in the 
secret council of the association, each among the sixteen quarters of Paris 
might have its representative and director. Thence the famous Committee 
of Sixteen, which played so great and so formidable a part in the history of 
that period. 

In vain did Henry III. attempt to resume some sort of authority in 
Paris ; his government, his public and private life, and his person were daily 
attacked, insulted, and menaced from the elevation of the pulpit and in the 
public thoroughfares by qualified preachers or mob-orators. The Duke de 
Guise, whose courage rendered him the favorite of the people, became more 
and more insolent. In defiance of a royal order he marched into Paris, and 
at the head of four hundred gentilsJwmmes set the king at defiance in the 
apartments of the Louvre. Barricades were raised throughout Paris, and the 
Swiss guards whom the king had summoned, disarmed by the populace, would 
have been slaughtered but for the interposition of Guise himself. At that 
supreme moment the duke hesitated and recoiled before the final step of 
attacking the Louvre. This wavering saved the king; for Catherine 
de' Medicis had time to amuse her rival by feigned propositions of reconcilia- 
tion, and in the mean while Henry III. could retire to Chartres. There the 
imbecile monarch, forsaken by every one, was compelled to approve all that 
had been done against himself ; he gave to the Duke de Guise several 
powerful towns, and named him generalissimo of the French forces; finally 
he convoked the States-general at Blois. Guise was not satisfied yet, and he 
insulted his king so repeatedly that he drove the most timid of men to the 
boldest of all resolutions — that of murdering him. 

On the evening of Thursday, December the 22d, the duke of Guise, on 
sitting down at table, found under his napkin a note to this effect: "The 
king means to kill you." Guise asked for a pen, wrote at the bottom of the 



120 FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. [1589 

note, " He dare not," and threw it under the table. In spite of this warning, 
lie persisted in going, on the next day, to the council-chamber. He crossed 
the king's chamber contiguous to the council-hall, courteously saluted, as he 
passed, Loignac and his comrades whom he found drawn up, and who, 
returning him a frigid obeisance, followed him as if to show him respect. On 
arriving at the door of the old cabinet, and just as he leaned down to raise 
the tapestry that covered it. Guise was struck by five poniard blows in the 
chest, neck, and reins : " God ha' mercy ! " he cried, and, though his sword 
was entangled in his cloak and he was himself pinned by the arms and legs 
and choked by the blood that spurted from his throat, he dragged his 
murderers, by a supreme effort of energy, to the other end of the room, 
where he fell down backwards and lifeless before the bed of Henry III. who, 
coming to the door of his room and asking " if it was done," contemplated 
with mingled satisfaction and terror the inanimate body of his mighty rival, 
■" who seemed to be merely sleeping, so little was he changed." " My God I 
Iiow tall he is ! " cried the king ; " he looks even taller than when he was 
alive." 

Thirteen days after the murder of the duke of Guise, on the 5th of 
January, 1589, Catherine de' Medici herself died. Nor was her death, so far 
as affairs and the public were concerned, an event. Time has restored 
Catherine de' Medici to her proper place in history ; she was quickly forgotten 
by her contemporaries. 

It was not long before Henry III. perceived that, to be king, it was not 
sufficient to have murdered his rival. He survived the duke of Guise only 
seven months, and, during that short period, he was not really king, all by 
himself, for a single day ; never had his kingship been so embarrassed and 
impotent ; the violent death of the duke of Guise had exasperated much 
more than enfeebled the league ; the feeling against his murderer was 
passionate and contagious. The majority of the great towns of France, Paris, 
Rouen, Orleans, Toulouse, Lyons, Amiens, and whole provinces declared 
eagerly against the royal murderer. He demanded support from the States- 
general, who refused it ; and he was obliged to dismiss them. The parliament 
of Paris, dismembered on the i6th of January, 1589, by the Council of 
Sixteen, became the instrument of the leaguers. The Sorbonne, consulted 
by a petition presented in the name of all Catholics, decided that Frenchmen 
were released from their oath of allegiance to Henry III., and might with a 
good conscience turn their arms against him. 

There was clearly for him but one possible ally who had a chance of 
doing effectual service, and that was Henry of Navarre and the Protestants. 
It cost Henry HI. a great deal to have recourse to that party ; his conscience 
and pusillanimity both revolted at it equally. In spite of his moral corruption, 
he was a sincere Catholic, and the prospect of excommunication troubled him 
deeply. However, on the 3d of April, 1589, a truce for a year was concluded 
between the two kings. This negotiation was not concluded without 
difficulty, especially as regarded the town of Saumur; there was a general 



1589] FRANCE.— THE WARS OF RELIGION. izr 

desire to cede to the king of Navarre only some place of less importance on 
the Loire, and when, on the 15th of April, Du Plessis-Mornay, who had been 
appointed governor of it, presented himself for admittance at the head of his 
garrison, the royalist commandant who had to deliver the keys to him limited 
himself to lettiiig them drop at his feet. Mornay showed alacrity in picking 
them up. 

On arriving before Paris toward the end of July, 1589, the two kings 
besieged it with an army of forty-two thousand men, the strongest and the 
best they had ever had under their orders. " The affairs of Henry III.," says 
De Thou, " had changed face ; fortune was pronouncing for him." " On 
Tuesday, August ist, at 8 A.M., he was told," says L'Estoile, "that a 
monk desired to speak with him, but that his guards made a difficulty about 
letting him in. 'Let him in,' said the king: 'if he is refused, it will be said 
that I drive monks away and will not see them.' Incontinently entered the 
monk, having in his sleeve a knife unsheathed. He made a profound 
reverence to the king, who had just got up and had nothing on but a dressing- 
gown about his shoulders, and presented to him dispatches from Count de 
Brienne, saying that he had further orders to tell the king privately something 
of importance. Then the king ordered those who were present to retire, and 
began reading the letter which the monk had brought, asking for a private 
audience afterward ; the monk, seeing the king's attention taken up with 
reading, drew his knife from his sleeve and drove it right into the king's small 
gut, below the navel, so home that he left the knife in the hole ; the which 
the king having drawn out with great exertion struck the monk a blow with 
the point of it on his left eyebrow, crying, 'Ah! wicked monk ! he has killed 
me ; kill him ! ' At which cry running quickly up, the guards and others, 
such as happened to be nearest, massacred this assassin of a Jacobin, who, as 
D'Aubigne says, stretched out his two arms against the wall, counterfeiting 
the crucifix, while the blows were dealt him. Having been dragged out dead 
from the king's chamber, he was stripped naked to the waist, covered with his 
gown and exposed to the public." Henry III. expired on the 2d of August, 
1589, between two and three in the morning. The first persons Henry of 
Navarre met as he entered the Hotel de Retz were the officers of the Scottish 
guard, who threw themselves at his feet, saying: "Ah ! sir, you are now our 
king and our master." 



IX. 



MET ly.-LOOIS m., EICffiLM AND THE COUET. 




19 



(1589-1593.) 



ENRY IV. perfectly understood and steadily took 
the measure of the situation in which he was placed. 
He set his thoughts higher, upon the general and 
natural interests of France as he found her and saw 
her. They resolved themselves, in his eyes, into the 
^^^ following great points : maintenance of the hereditary 

(i^y^y^^^ rights of monarchy, preponderance of Catholics . in 
e^^^G/o the government, peace between Catholics and Protestants, 
^^'b^ and religious liberty for Protestants. With him these points 
6\i?®5i''^ became the law of his policy and his kingly duty, as well as the 
nation's right. He proclaimed them in the first words that he 
addressed to the lords and principal personages of State assembled 
around him. On the 4th of August, 1589, in the camp at St. 
Cloud, the majority of the princes, dukes, lords, and gentlemen 
present in the camp expressed their full adhesion to the acces- 
sion and the manifesto of the- king. Two notable leaders, the 
duke of Epernon among the Catholics and the duke of La Tremoille amono- 
the Protestants, refused to join in this adhesion ; the former saying that his 
conscience would not permit him to serve a heretic king, the latter alleging 
that his conscience forbade him to serve a prince who engaged to protect 
Catholic idolatry. Three contemporaries, Sully, La Force, and the bastard 
of Angouleme, bear witness that Henry IV. was deserted by as many 
Huguenots as Catholics. The French royal army was reduced, it is said, to 
one-half. As a make-weight, Sancy prevailed upon the Swiss, to the number 
of twelve thousand, and two thousand German auxiliaries, not only to continue 
in the service of the new king, but to wait six months for their pay, as he 
■was at the moment unable to pay them. 

There was, in 1589, an unlawful pretender to the throne of France; and 
that was Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, younger brother of Anthony de 
Bourbon, king of Navarre, and consequently uncle of Henry IV., sole 
representative of the elder branch. Under Henry III. the cardinal had 
thrown in his lot with the league ; and, after the murder of Guise, Henry 
III. had, by way of precaution, ordered him to be arrested and detained him 




1590] FRANCE.— REIGN OF HENRY IV. 123 

in confinement at Chinon, where he still was when Henry III. was in his turn 
murdered. The Leaguers proclaimed him king under the name of Charles X. ; 
and, eight months afterward, on the 5th of March, 1590, the parliament of 
Paris issued a decree " recognizing Charles X. as true and lawful king of 
France." A few weeks before his death he had written to his nephew Henry 
IV. a letter in which he recognized him as his sovereign. 

The league was more than ever dominant in Paris ; Henry IV. could not 
think of entering there. He was closely pressed by Mayenne, who boasted 
that he would very shortly bring him into Paris bound hand and foot. 
Already windows were engaged on the line of streets through which the 
procession was to pass. He awaited the attack of Mayenne at Arques in 
Normandy, where with three thousand men alone he defeated an army of 
thirty thousand. Strengthened by the accession of a number of gentilshovuncs, 
Henry then once more attacked Paris, and pillaged the faubourg Saint 
Germain. 

Henry left some of his lieutenants to carry on the war in the environs of 
Paris, and himself repaired on the 2 1st of November to Tours, where the 
royalist parliament, the exchequer-chamber, the court of taxation, and all the 
magisterial bodies which had not felt inclined to submit to the despotism of 
the league, lost no time in rendering him homage, as the head and the 
representative of the national and the lawful cause. He reigned and ruled, to 
real purpose, in the eight principal provinces ; and his authority, although 
disputed, was making way in nearly all the other parts of the kingdom. He 
made war, not like a conqueror, but like a king who wanted to meet with 
acceptance in the places which he occupied and which he would soon have to 
govern. It was not long before Henry reaped the financial fruits of his 
protective equity; at the close of 1589 he could count upon a regular revenue 
of more than two millions of crowns, very insufficient, no doubt, for the wants 
of his government, but much beyond the of^cial resources of his enemies. 
He had very soon taken his proper rank in Europe. 

Unhappily the new pope, Gregory XIV., elected on the 5th of December, 
1590, was humbly devoted to the Spanish policy, meekly subservient to 
Philip 11. ; that is, to the cause of religious persecution and of absolute 
power, without regard for anything else. The relations of France with 
the Holy See at once felt the effects of this ; Cardinal Gaetani received 
from Rome all the instrtictions that the most ardent leaguers could desire ; 
and he gave his approval to a resolution of the Sorbonne to the effect 
that Henry de Bourbon, heretic and relapsed, was forever excluded from 
the crown, whether he became a Catholic or not. Henry IV. had convoked 
the States-general at Tours for the month of March, and had summoned 
to that city the archbishops and bishops to form a national council, and to 
deliberate as to the means of restoring the king to the bosom of the 
Catholic Church. The legate prohibited this council, declaring, beforehand, 
the excommunication and deposition of any bishops who should be present 
at it. In view of such passionate hostility, Henry IV., a stranger to any 



124 FRANCE.— REIGN OF HENRY IV. [1590 

sort of illusion, at the same time that he was always full of hope, saw 
that his successes at Arques were insufficient for him, and that if he were 
to occupy the throne in peace, he must win more victories. 

On Wednesday, the 14th of March, 1590, the two armies met on 
the plains of Ivry, a village six leagues from Evreux, on the left bank 
of the Eure. A battle ensued in which, although the resources of modern 
warfare were brought into operation, the decisive force consisted, as of 
old, in the cavalry. It appeared as if Henry IV. must succumb to the 
superior force of the enemy. At length Henry cried out that those who 
did not wish to fight against the enemy might at least turn and see him die, 
and immediately plunged into the thickest of the battle. Raising one mighty 
shout to God, they threw themselves upon the enemy, following their 
king, whose plume was now their banner. The cavalry was broken, 
scattered, and swept from the field, and the confused manner of their 
retreat so puzzled the infantry that they were not able to maintain their 
ground ; the German and French were cut down ; the Swiss surrendered. 
It was a complete victory for Henry IV. 

The victory of Ivry had a great effect in France and in Europe, 
though not immediately and as regarding the actual campaign of 1590. 
The victorious king moved on Paris, and made himself master of the 
little towns in the neighborhood with a view of besieging the capital. 
The investment became more strict ; it was kept up for more than three 
months, from the end of May to the beginning of September, 1590; 
and the city was reduced to a severe state of famine. 

In the mean time Duke Alexander of Parma, in accordance with 
express orders from Philip II., went from the Low Countries, with his 
army, to join Mayenne at Meaux, and threaten Henry IV. with their 
united forces if they did not retire from the walls of the capital. Henry IV. 
offered the two dukes battle, if they really wished to put a stop to the 
investment. Henry in vain attempted to make the duke of Parma accept 
battle. The able Italian established himself in a strongly entrenched 
camp, surprised Lagny and opened to Paris the navigation of the Marne, 
by which provisions were speedily brought up. Henry decided upon retreat- 
ing ; he dispersed the different divisions of his army into Touraine, Normandy, 
Picardy, Champagne, Burgundy, and himself took up his quarters at Senlis, 
at Compiegne, in the towns on the banks of the Oise. The duke of 
Mayenne arrived on the i8th of September at Paris; the duke of Parma 
entered it himself with a few officers and left it on the 13th of November, 
with his army on his way back to the Low Countries. 

Then began to appear the consequences of the victory of Ivry and 
the progress made by Henry IV., in spite of the check he received before 
Paris and at some other points in the kingdom. Not only did many 
moderate Catholics make advances to him, struck with his sympathetic 
ability and his valor, and hoping that he would end by becoming a 
Catholic, but patriotic wrath was kindling in France against Philip II. 



SHOWING A CONNECTED HISTORY OF THE WORL 



1551—1599. 

GERMANY. 

1 5 52 — Eud of religious wars. 

56— Abdication of CHARLES V. 
64— Accession of MAXIMILIAN II. 

76— RUDOLF II. reigns. 



FRANCE. f^,,,,. 

155 7— TWar with Spain. 5 8— Calais taken by duke of 

60-Kegency of CATHERINE DE' MEDICI. 

62— Massacre of Protestants ; GUISE defeats 
Huguenots. 

63— Siege of Orleans ; GUISE killed. [tholomew. 

67— Battle of St. Denis. 72— Massacre of St. Bar- 

74— Keign of HENRY III., last of the Valois. 

85— HENRY III. killed; HENRY IV., first of Bour- 
bon line ; duke of Guise and brother killed. 

90— Battle of Ivry ; league defeated by HENRY IV. 

93— HENRY IV. adopts Catholicism. 

98— Edict of Nantes in favor of Protestants. 



ENGLAND. 

1552— Execution of SOMERSET; Common Prayer 

Book established. 
53— MARY reigns ; Roman Catholic religion restored ; 

Lady JANE GREY proclaimed king; duke 

of Northumberland executed. 
54_WYATT'S insurrection suppressed ; Lady JANE 

GREY executed ; MARY marries PHILIP of 

Spain ; Lord DUDLEY beheaded. 
55-6— CRANMER, LATIMER and RIDLEY burned. 
59— Church of England re-established by ELIZA- 
88— Spanish armada defeated. [BETH. 



SCOTLAND. 



1550-60— KNOX reformation. [France. 

58 — MARY, queen of Scots, marries the dauphin of 
65— Marriage of Lord DARNLEY and MARY. 
66— RIZZIO murdered by DARNLEY. 
67— DARNLEY assassinated ; MARY marries BOTH- 
WELL ; she abdicates ; Earl MURRAY regent. 
68 — MARY defeated at Langside ; escapes from pris- 
on ; seeks shelter in England. 
70— Murder of MURRAY ; LENNOX regent. 
7 1— MAR regent. 8 7— MARY executed. 



IRELAND. 



1579— Irish rebellion suppressed. 

80— Admiral WINTER and Lord GREY take for- 
tress of Smirwick from Italians and butcher 
seven hundred or eight hundred prisoners. 

98— O'NEIL, earl of Tyrone, rebels ; defeats English 
at Blackwater. 



AMERICA. 



1562— Huguenots found Port Royal. 
65— MILLENDEZ founds St. Augustine. 
76— FROBISHER at San Francisco bay. 
79— DRAKE on the Pacific coast. 



OTHER NATIONS. 

1555— PHILIP 11. of Spain governs Holland. 

62 — Union of Russia and Sweden against Poland. 
70 — XAventy-five thousand people massacred by 
IVAN the Terrible of Russia. [of Lepanto. 

71— Tartars bum Moscow ; Turks defeated ; battle 
72— Kebellion of WILLIAM of Orange. 
76— Peace of Ghent. 79— I^eague of Utrecht. 

80 — Portugal conquered by ALVA of Spain. 
84 — WILLIAM of Orange assassinated. 
85— Prince of Parma subdues southern provinces 
87— Prince MAURICE stadt-holder. 
98 — Netherlands ceded to Austria. 
99 — Apenzel joins the Swiss Cantons. 



CHART VI. 



FROM 1551 TO 1719 A.D. 



1600—1639. 



1618— Thirty Years' War commenced. [Palatin 

20 — Battle of Prague ; total overthrow of the elect 
30— Invasion by GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS 

Sweden. [PHUS at the battle of Lutze 

32— Victory and death of GUSTAVUS ADO! 



1610— RAVAILAC assassinates HENRY IV.; Mi 
RIA DE' MEDICI regent. 
20 — Navarre annexed. 
24— RICHELIEU'S administration. 
28— RICHELIEU reduces RocheUe. 
31 — Treaty of Cherasco (Italy). 
34 — Invasion by Spaniards. 



1 600 — East India Company chartered. 

1 — Earl of Essex executed. 

3— Death of Queen ELIZABETH. 

5— Gunpowder Plot. 
11 — JAMES I. creates title of baronet. 
14 — Portuguese defeated in Bombay. 
16— Death of SHAKESPEARE. 
18— Execution of Sir WALTER RALEIGH. 
21~ljOrd BACON impeached for bribery. 
25— Marriage of CHARLES I. 
26— Death of BACON. 

28— Assassination of duke of Buckingham. 
37-Trial of JOHN HAMPDEN. 



1 603— J AMES VI. of Scotland becomes JAMES I. of Enj 
land. 
4 — ^JAMES assumes the title of king of Great Bri 
ain ; the union of Scotland and England : 
Great Britain was not formally accomplished t 
acts of parliament until May ist in England ar 
January 7th in Scotland, 1707. 
38 — The Covenanters and solemn league. 
39— English army withdrawn by CHARLES I. 



1609— Irish driven from Ulster ; land divided betwe* 
English and Scotch. 



1604- 

7- 

8- 

9- 

14- 

19- 
20- 
23- 
27- 
29 

30- 
32- 
35- 
37- 



-Settlements in Nova Scotia. 
-Jamestown settled. 

-Quebec settled by CHAMPLAIN. 
-HENRY HUDSON discovers Hudson River. 
-Newr Yorlc built by the Dutch (New Amstei 

dam). 
-Introduction of slavery in Virginia. 
-Puritans land at Plymouth. 
-Settlement of New Hampshire. 
Settlement of Delaware by Swedes and Dutcl 
-French possessions in Canada seized by Enj 

lish : .Massachusetts Bay Colony. 
-Boston founded. [to Lord BALTIMORI 

-Canada restored to France ; Maryland grante 
-Connecticut and Rhode Island settled. 
-Pequot War. 38— New Haven foundec 



1601— Alleged discovery of Australia by Portuguese. 
6— Massacre of Poles by Russians ; Dutch obser\ 

Australia. 
9— Independence of United Provinces. 
13— Accession of ROMANOFF dynasty in Russi: 
16— TSING dynasty founded in China (still reigmng 
21— Dutch war with Spain ; formation of the Dutc 

West India Company. 
38— Persians defeated by Turks, who take Bagdat 
39— VAN TROMP (dutch admiral) captures two Spar 
ish fleets. 



Designed for Gay's Standard Histories, by "WILLIAM ( 



L^^i-Li^ v^ r;i i-1. IV 1 o, 

:iENT AND MODERN, FROM 2800 B.C. TO 1884 A.a 



1640—1680. 



648— End of Thirty Years' War ; treaty of Westphalia. 
56— Prussia declared independent of Poland. 

Turks commit ravages in Germany during the 

REIGN OF LEOPOLD 1. 



642- 
43- 

48- 
61- 
64- 
68- 

70- 

72- 

78- 



-DeatU of RICHELIEU. 

-Regency of ANNE of Austria; MAZARIN in 
the ascendent. 

Tlie Fronde — civil wars. 

DoatU of MAZARIN. 

-War with Holland. 

•Triple alliance— England, Holland and Swe- 
den join against France. 

■Sweden breaks alliance and joins France. 

■Holland overrun by Cond^ and Turenne ; dykes 
opened and e.xpulsioa of French. 

-Peace of Nimeguen. 



641— Execution of Earl STRAFFORD, [civil war. 

42 — CHARLES I. tries to arrest members of the House; 

44— CROMWELL victorious at Marston Moor. 

45 — Battle of Naseby ; royalists defeated ; execution 
of Archbishop LAUD. 

49 — CHARLES I. executed ; the commonwealth. 

63 — CROMWELL dissolves long parliament and be- 
comes lord protector. 

55— Five years' war with Spain. 

58— DeatU of CROMWELL; succeeded by RICH- 
ARD CROMWELL. 

69— RICHARD resigns. 

60— Restoration ; CHARLES II. returns. 

62 — Act ol uniformity ; church of England restored. 

65 — Tlie great plague in London. 

65-6— Butcli wars. 66— Great fire in London. 

78-9— TITUS OATES and the false popish plot. 

79 — Habeas corpus act passed. 

80— Execution of Lord STAFFORD. 



645— MONTROSE defeated by Covenanters. 
46 — CHARLES I. takes refuge in Scotland and is 

given up to parliament. 
60 — Execution of Montrose. 
51 — CHARLES II. crowned at Scone; escapes after 

battle of Worcester. 
61— Duke of ARGYLE executed. 



641— Ulster rebellion ; O'NEIL'S proclamation. 
49 — CROMWELL in Ireland ; massacre and capture 

of Drogheda. 
53 — Irish property confiscated by the English ; Irish 

transplanted beyond the Shannon. 
67— Parliament of Westminster proscribe three 

wild beasts — "wolves," "tories and " beasts." 



642— Montreal founded. 
44 — Rliode Island chartered ; Indian massacre in 

Virginia. 
63— Canada a royal government under France. 
64— ElizabetU, New Je.-sey, settled ; North Carolina 

settled ; the English take New York. 
65 — Slavery introduced in North Carolina. 
70— Engllsli settle South Carolina. 
73— Discoveries of MARQUET and JOLIET. 
75-Itins PHILIP'S War. 
80— Mississippi explored ; Charleston founded. 



640— Spaniards driven from Portugal. 

42-Dcath of GALILEO. 

48— Spain relinquishes Holland (treaty of West- 
phalia) ; republic of the provinces recognized 
by Europe. 

62— "War between Holland and England ; Admiral 
VAN TROMP sweeps the channel. 

63— BLAKE defeats DE RUYTER ; peace. 

62— Thirty thousand killed at Pekin by earthquake. 

68— Independence of Portugal recognized ; treaty 
of Lisbon. 

72— The French acquire Pondicherry, India. 



1681—1719. 



1683-JOHN SOBIESKl of Poland defeats the Turks at 
Vienna. 
-War ended with France ; peace of Ryswick 
Peace with the Turks. [Prussia 

The Elector FREDERICK recognized as king of 
War with France. 4— Battle of Blenheim, 

Peace of Utrecht. 
W^ar between Prussia and Sweden. 



97 
99 
1700 
2 
13 
15 



1685- 
90- 
97- 

98- 

1701- 

2- 

6- 

7- 
13- 



-Edlct of Nantes revoked. 

Tlie grand alliance against France. 

■Peace of Ryswick ends war with England, Hol- 
land, Germany and Spain. 

■Spain cedes territory ; first partition treaty. 

-Alliance with Spain. 

War ot the Spanish succession— England, Aus- 
tria and Holland opposed to France and Spain. 

■Battle of Ramilies ; French defeated. 

-W^ar with England, Germany and Holland. 

■Treaty of Utrecht. 1 5— Death of LO UIS XIV. 



1683— Bye house plot- Lord RUSSELL and ALGER. 
NON SIDNEY executed. 



85 
88- 



89- 

92 

94 

1704 

7- 

8 

10 

14 

15 

19 



-MONMOUTH'S rebellion and execution. 

-The seven bishops tried and acquitted ; arrival of 

the prince of Orange ; JAMES II. abdicates 

and flees to France. 
-WILLIAM and MARY proclaimed. 
-National debt begins. [MARY. 

-Bank of England founded ; death of Oueen 
6-9— MARLBOROUGH victorious. 
-Scotland and England united as Great Britain. 
-French squadron routed by Admiral BYNG. 
-Sacheveral's riots. [I. 

-Hanoverian succession begins with GEORGB 
-Scotch rebellion suppressed. 
-Ostend East India Company founded. 



1685— Rebellion and execution of ARGYLE. 
8 9— Claverho use — rebellion suppressed . 



90— WILLIAM III. in Ireland ; the battle of the Boyne 
and defeat of JAMES II. 

91 — Treaty of Limerick, which deprives J.\MES of 

power and bestows amnesty to all his adher- 

1704 — Irish " popery " act passed. [ents. 

14— Ireland loyal to GEORGE I. during the rebell- 
ion of JAMES III., the Pretender. 



1682— PENN settles Pennsylvania; LA SALLE on the 
Mississippi ; names Louisiana. 
85— Texas colonized. 
89-KIng WILLIAM'S War; French and Indian 

wars ; failure of Canadian e.xpedition. 
92— Salem vvithcraft. 1701— Detroit founded. 
1702— Queen ANNE'S war; treaty of French with 
I'ivc Nations ; Massachusetts frontier ravaged. 
10 — Port Royal taken and called Annapolis. 
1 1 — Wreck ol the expedition against yuebec. 
13— Queen ANNE'S War ends by treaty of Utrecht. 
1 7— Settlement of New Orleans. 



1686— Russia and Poland's alliance against the Turks. 
87— JOSEPH I. of Austria: Venetians capture Athens. 
89— PETER I. 91 - Spain invaded by France. 

95 — Turks invade Hungary. [allies. 

99— Treaty of Carlowitz between Turkey and the 
1700— Russia defeats Sweden ; first Russian frigate 
built bv PETER the (Jreat. [Gibraltar. 

3— St. Pete'rsburis: founded. 4- British take 
6— Naples and Lonibardy surrendered to Italy. 
8— MAZEPPA and Cos.sacks revolt. 
19— PETER defeats CHARLES XII. of Sweden. 
13 — Naples ceded to Au.stria. 
18— "Turkish supremacy re-established in Greece. 



256 Chapel St., New Haven, Conn. COPYBIGHT 1883. 



GAY'S CHRONOLOGICAL CHARTS, 

SHOWING A CONNECTED HISTORY OF THE WORLD, ANCIENT AND MODERN, FRO^I 2800 B.C. TO ISSl A.D, 



1551—1599. 



GERMANY. 



1662-Kinl of roliKious vvars. 

50 A l.«ll«atlon of CHARLES V, 
«4 -A<;«c«»I"" "f MAXIMILIAN 11. 
ta-RVUOLb' II. reigns. 



FRANCE. fGuise. 

1557 War witti Spain. S8-€alaI»» taijen by duke of 
;» K<-K«^..ryokATHKI<INK Dfc' MEDICI. 
(ja l?laH>.a«r<! of I'roieslants ; GUISE defeats 

JIui'uciiors. r . , 

«'t SI«'"<-of Orl<-;.n';- GUISK killicl. [tliolomew. 

«V Miiuicof Si. l^iMiis. 72 fflaMHacrc of St. IJar- 
■ri lirlirii of ll/'..\KY III., l.iM .jf the Valois. 
85 HK^^<y Hi. killed; lIKNUy IV., first of Bour- 

hon line • duke of Guise and brother killed. 
»0— Knttic, of Ivry ; league defeated by HENRY IV. 
93— HiCNKV IV. adopts Catholieism. 
08— Kdlct of Nantes in favor of ProtcsUnts. 



ENGEAND. 

1652 Kxccutloii of SOMERSET; Common Prayer 
l)(;ol< estahlished, 
53— MARY reiKns ; Rt.man Catholic reliKion restored ; 
Lady JANE GREY proclaimed kinj; , duke 
of Nortlniinberland executed. 



64-WYATT'S 
(;i<l'.V 



suppressed; Lady JANE 
lid ; MARY marries PHILIP of 



IjKI'.Y r.\r( III! U i*i/\ivi iii.iiiiv.n 

Siiain ■ l.oril I)IM)I.I';Y bL-hcaded. 
65-0 (RANMKU, LATIMERand RIDLEY burned. 
51» <!lmr«'li of iMiL'land re-established by ELIZA- 
8H SpaiilKli armada defeated. LBETH. 

SCOTLAND. 

1550 00 KNOX rrfornialion. fFrancc. 

5K MARY, i|uiin of Siols, marries the dauphin of 

«5 in«ri-l»t>o ol l,.,Ti! DAKNI.I'.Y and MARY. 

(1(1 Kl/./.IO linii.li-iril hy DAKNI.I'.Y. 

07- DARN I.I': V , .;.r.in.ir,l; iM A R Y marries HOTII- 
Wl''.l.l, ; '.li. .ili.li' .11. .; I';arl MURRAY re(,'ent. 

68— MARY lirli Ml' 'I It I .'Ml ■.idc; escapes from pris- 
on; srik'. .li. Ii. I Ml l',ii(,'land. 

70- ITHii-<l«M-ol MUKRAY; LENNOX repent. 

71 MAR repent. 87— MARY executed. 

IRIU.ANI). 

1579 ItImIi rrlicllion suppressed. 

8U- Admiral WINTER and Lord GREY take for- 
tress of Smirvvick from Italians and butcher 
seven hundri'd or ripht hundred prisoners. 
98— O'NEIL.rarl of Tyrone, rebels ; defeats English 
at Blackwater. 



AMI'. RICA. 

15(i2 lIliU'lU'llotM found Port Royal. 
(Jft iMll.r,l':NI>l'',/, founds St. Aupustine. 
70 !• R01USIU';R at San Eranciseo bay. 
70-DRAKE on the Pucilic coast. 

OTHER NATIONS. 

1666 - PHILIP II. of S|.aiii eoven.s Holland. 

02 Union of Kiissi.i .md Sweden apainst Poland. 

70 T\v«>n«y-liv<- ilions.ind people massacred by 

IVAN the Ten il.le ol Russia. |of Lcpanlo. 

71 Tartnrn burn Moscow ; I'urks defeated ; battle 

72 Kobclllonof WILLIAM of Oranjre. 

70 l*«>afO of Ghent. 79 l.oaa;iio of Utrecht. 

80- IN>rtil«:al con.nurcil bv A1.V.\ of Spain. 

8-1 WILLIAM of Or.in-e .iss.issinated. 

86 I'rIiK'c of I'-.uin.i subdues southern provinces 

87- rrliM'o MAURU'K siadl-holder. 

08— Ncthorlainlx ceded to .Xustria. 

00— Apciizcl joins Uie Swiss Cantons. 



CHART VL 



FROM 1551 TO 1719 A.D. 



1600—1639. 



1618— Thirty Years' War commenced. [Palatine. 

20- Battle of Pratnie ; total overthrow of the elector 

30 Invasion by GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS of 

Sweden. [PHUS at the battle of Lutzen. 

32— Victory and death of GUSTAVUS ADOL- 



1610-RAVAILAC a-ssassinates HENRY IV.; MA- 
RIA DE' .MEDICI regent. 
20— Navarre annexed. 
24— RICHELIEU'S administration. 
28— RICHELIEU reduces Rochelle. 
31— Treaty of Cherasco (Italy;. 
34— luvaMiou by Spaniards. 



1600— East India Company chartered. 

1— Karl of Esse.x executed. 

3-Deatli of Queen ELIZABETH. 

5— tiunpowder Plot. 
1 1— JAMES I. creates title of baronet. 
14— Portiijriiene defeated in Rombay. 
16-I»eatli of SHAKESPEARE. 
IS-lCxceutlon of Sir WALTER RALEIGH. 
21 -l<<>r<l HACON impeached for bribery. 

25- MarrJaso of CHARLES I. 

26- Doatli of BACON. 

28 — AwKaissiiiatioii of duke of Buckingham. 
37-Trlalof JOHN HAMPDEN. 



1603— J AMES VI. of Scotland becomes JAMES I. of Eng- 
land. 
4— JAMES a,ssumes the title of king of Great Brit- 
ain ; the union of Scotland and England as 
Great Britain was not formally accomplished by 
acts of parliament until May ist in England and 
January 7th in Scotland, 1707. 
38 — TUo Covenanters .and solemn league. 
39— KngllsLt army wiUidrawn by CHARLES I. 



1609— IlisU driven from Ulster ; land divided between 
English and Scotch. 



1604- 

7- 

8 

9 

14- 

19- 

20- 

23- 

27 

29 

30- 
32 
35- 
37- 



■SettlcinentH in Nova Scotia. 

JainrHtonii settled. 

Hl'K-lx-e settled by CHAMPLAIN. 

1I1':NRN' IIUDS0>J discovers Hudson River. 

Now York built by the Dutch (New Amster- 
dam). 

Introduction of slavery in Virginia. 

Purttanni land .at Plymouth. 

Settlement of New Hampshire. 

Settlenientof Delaware by Swedes and Dutch. 

French pos.sessions in Canada seized by Eng- 
lish ; Mas,sachusetts Bay Colony. 

BoHton founded. [to Lord BALTIMORE. 

<'ana<la restored to France ; .Maryland granted 

Connecticut and Rhode Island settled. 

Pequot War. 38— New Haven founded. 



1601— AlleKcd discovery of Austr.alia by Portuguese. 
6— massacre of Poles by Russians ; Dutch observe 

.'Australia. 
9— Independence of United Provmces. 
13— .VcccMjilouof ROMANOFF dynasty in Russia. 
16— TSING dynasty founded in China (still reigning). 
21— Dutcit war with Spain ; formation of the Dutch 

West India Company. 
38— Persians defeated bv Turks, who take Bagdad. 
39— V.\N TROMP (.dutch admiral) captures two Span- 
ish fleets. 



1610—1680. 

1648— End of Thirtv Years' War ; treaty of Westphalia. 
66 — Prussia declared independent ot Poland. 

TlKKS COMMIT R.\V.\GES l.N GeK.M.\.\V DIKING THB 

REIGN OF LEOPOLD I. 



1642-Death of RICHELIEU. 

43— Kegencyof ANNE of .Austria; M.\Z.\RIN in 
tfie ascendent. 

48— The Fronde — civil wars. 

61-Deatli of MAZARIN. 

64— War with Holland. 

68— Triple alliance— England, Holland and Swe- 
den join against France. 

70— Sweden breaks alliance and joins France. 

72— Holland overrun by Cond^ and Turenne ; dykes 
opened and expulsion of French. 

78— Peace of Nimeguen. 



841— Execution of Earl STRAFFORD, [civil w.ir. 

42 — CH.'^RLES I. tries to arrest members of the House; 

44— CROMWELL victorious at Marston Moor. 

45 — Battle of N'aseby ; royalists defeated ; e.\ecution 
of Archbishop LAUD. 

49 — CHARLES I. executed ; the commonwealth. 

63— CROMWELL dissolves long parliament and be- 
comes lord protector. 

65 — Five years' war with Spain. 

58-Death of CROMWELL ; succeeded by RICH- 
ARD CROMWELL. 

59— RICHARD resigns. 

60— Restoration; CHARLES II. returns. 

62— Act 01 uniformity ; church of England restored. 

65 — The great plague in London. 

65-6— Butch wars. 66 -Croat tire in London. 

78-9— TITUS O.ATES and the false popish plot. 

79 — Habeas corpus act passed. 

80— Execution of Lord STAFFORD. 



1645— MONTROSE defeated by Covenanters. 

46— CHARLES I. takes refuge in Scotland and is 

given up to parliament. 
60 — Execution ot Montrose. 
61 — CHARLES II. crowned at Scone; escapes after 

battle of Worcester. 
61— Dnke of ARGYLE executed. 



1641— TPlster rebellion ; O'NEIL'S proclamation. 

49 — CROMWELL in Ireland ; massacre and capture 

of Drogheda. 
63 — Irish property confiscated by the English ; Irish 

transplanted beyond the Shannon. 
67 — Parliament of Westminster proscribe three 

wild beasts — "wolves," "tories ' and " beasts." 



1642— montreal founded. 

44 — Rhode Island chartered ; Indian massacre in 

Virginia. 
63— Canada a royal government under France. 
64— Elizabeth, New Jesey , settled ; North Carolina 

settled ; the English take New York. 
65 — Slavery introduced in North Carolina. 
70— Englisli settle South Carolina. 
73— Discoveries of MARQUET and JOLIET. 
75-Kin£ PHILIP'S War. 
80— Mississtppi explored ; Charleston founded. 



1640— Spaniards driven from Portugal. 

42-Death of GALILEO. 

48— Spain relinquishes Holland (treaty of West- 
phalia) ; republic of the provinces recognized 
by Europe. 

62— "War between Holland and England ; Admiral 
VAN TROMP sweeps the channel. 

63— BLAKE defeats DE RUYTER ; peace. 

62— Thirty thousand killed at Pekin by earthquake. 

68 — Independence of Portugal recognized ; treaty 
of Lisbon. 

72— The French acquire Pondicherry, India. 



16S1— 1719. 

1683- JOHN SOBIESKI of Pohuid defeats the Turks at 
\ ienna. 
97— "War ended with Fr.ance; peace of Ryswick. 
99- Peace with the Turks. [Prussia 

1700-The Elector FREDERICK recognized as king of 
2-War with Fr.ince. 4— Battle of Blenheim. 

1 3— Peace 01" Utrecht. 
15 — War between Prussia and Sweden. 

1685 -Edict of N.intes revoked. 

90-Tl«e ,s;r.>nd alliance ac.unst France. 
97— Ponce ol Ryswicii ends war with England, Hol- 
land, Germanv ,\nd Spain. 
98— Spain cedes lerViiorv ; hr.st partition treaty. 
1701-AlUaucc with Spain. 

2— W'ar 01 ihe Sii.imsli .suceessiou— England, Aus* 

tri.i and Holland opposed to France and Spaioi 

6— Battle of Ramilies ; French defeated. 

7— War with Knghuid, Germany and Holland. i 

13-Trcaty of Utrecht. 15-Moathof LOUISXlVJ 



1683-Ryol 



Plot • Lord RUSSELL and ALGER. 



•o House plot ; Lord RUSS 
NON SIONkV executed. 
85— MONMOU IMS rebellion .md execution. 
88— Tlie seven bishops mod .md acquitted ; arrival of 
the prmoe ol Orange; JAMES II. abdicate* 
and llees 1,1 I'l.iiue. 
89- W1LI.I.\M .md MARY proclaimed. 
92— National delu lu-f^ins, [MAR'V. 

,-5^"^~7,".i"''*^ '" Ennl.uid lonnded; death of OuccO 
1704-6-9-MARl.KORCH.'t;H victorious. 

7— Scon .\Ni> .\M> Knc.i.anii UNrrKii .\sGkkat Bkitaik, 
8- French M|ii.uln.n routed by .'Vdmiral HYNG. 

10 s»< liiveiiiirs II,, is. rr 

14 Ha 11 overla II MK cession begins with GKORGB 

15 Scolcli I rlielli. .11 suppressed. 

19 -Ostciltl l';.isl India Company founded. 



1685— Rebellion and execution of ARGYLB. 
89— Clavcrhouso— rebellion suppressed. 



Designed for Gay's Stundard Histories, by "WTLLIAM GAY ii C!o., 256 Chapel St.. New Haven, Conn. COPYBIGHT 1883. 



90— WILLIAM III. in Ireland -the battle of the Hoyoe 
and defeat of JAMES II. 

91— Treaty of Limerick, which deprives JAMES o£ 

power and bestows amnesty to all his adhcr> 

1704— Irisli " po|)ery " act jiasscd. lents, 

14~Ireland loval to (JEORGE I. during the rebell- 
ion of JAMES HI., the Pretender. 



1682-PENN settles Pennsylvania; LA SALLE on the 
Mississippi ; names Louisiana. 
8 5 Texas colonized. 
89- Klnu WILLIAM'S War; French and Indian 

wars; failure of Canadian exiiedilioii. 
92-Salem wiihcraft. 1701- Detroit founded. 
1702-Queen A.NNl'.'S war; treaty of p'rench with 
I' ive Nations ; Massachusetts frontier ravaged, 
10— Port Royal i;iken .ind called Annapolis. 
ll-\Vr<M-k '.1 ihi- cxpiclition against yuebee. 
13 UiK-cii .WNIv'.s War ends by treaty of Utrecht. 
17— Scttleuicnt of New Orleans. 



1686 — Russia and Poland's alliance against the Turks, 
87— JOSEPH I. of Austria: Venetians capture Athena. 
89-PETKR I. 91 Spain invaded by France. 

95 -Turl*s inv.adc Hungary. [allies. 

99— Treaty of Carlowitz between Turkey and the 
1700— Russia defeats Sweden ; first Russian frigate 
built by PETER the (irt-M. Klibraltar. 

3— St. Petersbure founded. 4-Brltisii take 
6 — Naples and Lombardy surrendered 10 Italy. 
8— MAZEPPA and Cossacks revolt. 
10— PETER defeats CHARLES XII. of Sweden. 
13— Naples ceded to Austria. 
18— Turltlsh supremacy re-established in Greece. 



I 



1591] FRANCE.— REIGN OF HENRY IV. 125 

and the Spaniards, those fomenters of civil war in the mere interest of 
foreign ambition. 

The league was split up into two parties, the Spanish League and 
the French League. The committee of Sixteen labored incessantly for the 
formation and triumph of the Spanish League, and its principal leaders 
wrote, on the 2d of September, 1591, a letter to Philip II., offering him 
the crown of France and pledging their allegiance to him as his subjects. 
These ringleaders of the Spanish League had for their army the blindly 
fanatical and demagogic populace of Paris, and were, further, supported 
by four thousand Spanish troops whom Philip II. had succeeded in getting 
almost surreptitiously into Paris, They created a council of ten, the sixteenth 
century's committee of public safety; they proscribed the policists^they, 
on the 15th of November, had the president, Brisson, and two coun- 
cillors of the Leaguer parliament arrested, hanged them to a beam, and 
dragged the corpses to the Place de Greve, where they strung them up 
to a gibbet with inscriptions setting forth that they were heretics, traitors to 
the city and enemies to the Catholic princes. While the Spanish League 
was thus reigning at Paris, the duke of Mayenne was at Laon, preparing to 
lead his army, consisting partly of Spaniards, to the relief of Rouen,, the 
siege of which Henry IV. was commencing. Being summoned to Paris 
by messengers who succeeded one another every hour, he arrived there 
on the 28th of November, 1591, with two thousand French troops; he 
armed the guard of burgesses, seized and hanged, in a ground-floor room 
of the Louvre, four of the chief leaders of the Sixteen, suppressed their 
committee, re-established the parliament in full authority, and, finally, 
the security and preponderance of the French League, while taking the 
reins once more into his own hands. 

In all the provinces, throughout all ranks of society, the population 
non-enrolled among the factions were turning their eyes toward Henry 
IV. as the only means of putting an end to war at home and abroad, 
the only pledge of national unity, public prosperity, and even freedom of 
trade, a hazy idea as yet, but even now prevalent in the great ports 
of France and in Paris. Would Henry turn Catholic? That was the 
question asked everywhere among Protestants with anxiety, but with keen 
desire and not without hope among the mass of the population. The 
rumor ran that, on this point, negotiations were half opened even in the 
midst of the league itself, even at the court of Spain, even at Rome. 
Such being the existing state of facts and minds, it was impossible that 
Henry IV. should not ask himself roundly the same question and feel 
that he had no time to lose in answering it. 

In spite of the breadth a.nd independence of his mind, Henry IV. 
was sincerely puzzled. There is no measuring accurately how far ambi- 
tion, personal interest, a king's egotism had to do with Henry IV.'s 
abjuration of his religion : none would deny that those human infirmities 
v/ere present ; but all this does not prevent the conviction that patriotism 



126 FRANCE.— REIGN OF HENRY IV. [1593 

was uppermost in Henry's soul, and that the idea of his duty as king 
toward France, a prey to all the evils of civil and foreign war, was the 
determining motive of his resolution. It cost him a great deal. On the 
26th of April, 1593, he wrote to the grand duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand 
de' Medici, that he had decided to turn Catholic. On the 28th of April 
he begged the bishop of Chartres, Nicholas de Thou, to be one of the 
Catholic prelates whose instructions he would be happy to receive on the 
15th of July, and he sent the same invitation to several other prelates. 
On the i6th of May he declared to his council his resolve to become 
a convert. This news, everywhere spread abroad, produced a lively burst 
of national and Bourbonic feeling, even where it was scarcely to be expected. 
During these disputes among the civil functionaries and continuing 
all the while to make proposals for a general truce, Henry IV. vigor- 
ously resumed warlike operations so as to bring pressure upon his adver- 
saries and make them perceive the necessity of accepting the solution he 
offered them. He besieged and took the town of Dreux, of which the 
castle alone persisted in holding out. He cut off the provisions which 
were being brought by the Marne to Paris. He kept Poitiers strictly 
invested. Lesdiguieres defeated the Savoyards and the Spaniards in the 
valleys of Dauphiny and Piedmont. Count Mansfield had advanced xAth. 
a division toward Picardy ; but at the news that the king was marching 
to encounter him, he retired with precipitation. The castle of Dreux was 
obliged to capitulate. Thanks to the four thousand Swiss paid for him by 
the grand duke of Florence, to the numerous volunteers brought to him by 
the noblesse of his party, " and to the sterling quality of the old Huguenot 
phalanx, folks who, from father to son, are familiarized with death," says 
D'Aubigne, Henry IV. had recovered in June, 1593, so good an army that 
" by means of it," he wrote to Ferdinand de' Medici, " I shall be able to 
reduce the city of Paris in so short a time as will cause you great content- 
ment." He entered resolutely, on the 15th of July, 1593, upon the employ- 
ment of the moral means which alone could enable him to attain this end ; he 
assembled at Mantes the conference of prelates and doctors, Catholic and 
Protestant, which he had announced as the preface to his conversion. 

Ten days after, on Sunday, the 25th of July, 1593, he repaired in great 
state to the church of St. Denis. On arriving with all his train in front of 
the grand entrance, he was received by Reginald de Beaune, archbishop of 
Bourges " Who are you ? " asked the archbishop who officiated. " The 
king." "What want you?" To be received into the bosom of the Cath- 
oHc, Apostolic, and Roman Church." "Do you desire.it?" "Yes, I will 
and desire it." At these words the king knelt and made the stipulated 
profession of faith. The archbishop gave him absolution together with 
benediction ; and, conducted by all the clergy to the choir of the church, 
he there, upon the gospels, repeated his oath, made his confession, heard 
mass, and was fully reconciled with the Church. The vaulted roof of the 
church resounded with their shouts of Hurrah for the king I There was 



1594] FRANCE.— THE REIGN OF HENRY IV. 127 

the same welcome on the part of the dwellers in the country when Henry 
repaired to the valley of Montmorency and to Montmartre to perform 
his devotions there. 

On one side a great majority of Catholics and Protestants favorable 
for different practical reasons to Henry IV. turned Catholic king; on 
the other, two minorities, one of stubborn Catholics of the league, the 
other of Protestants anxious for their creed and their liberty ; both 
discontented and distrustful. This triple fact was constantly present to 
the mind of Henry IV. and ruled his conduct during all his reign, all 
the acts of his government are proof of that. It was province by 
province, inch by inch that he had to recover his kingdom. At Lyons, 
the success of the king was easy and disinterested ; not so in Normandy. 
Andrew de Brancas, lord of Villars, an able man and valiant soldier, 
was its governor; he had served the league with zeal and determination; 
nevertheless thinking, however, that every man has his price, he determined 
to get out of Henry IV. as much as he could, and the following 
memorandum shows how far he was successful: — "To M. Villars, for himself, 
his brother Chevalier d'Oise, the towns of Rouen and Havre and other 
places, as well as for compensation which had to be made to MM. de 
Montpensier, Marshal de Biron, Chancellor de Chiverny, and other persons 
included in his treaty .... 3,447,800 livres." 

Nicholas de Neufville, lord of Villeroi, after having served Charles 
IX. and Henry III., had become through attachment to the Catholic 
cause a member of the league and one of the duke of Mayenne's 
confidants. When Henry IV. was king of France and Catholic king, 
Villeroi tried to serve his cause with Mayenne, and induce Mayenne to 
be reconciled with him. Meeting with no success, he made up his mind 
to separate from the league, and go over to the king's service. He 
could do so without treachery or shame ; even as a leaguer and a servant 
of Mayenne's, he had always been opposed to Spain, and devoted to a 
French, but at the same time a faithfully CathoHc policy. He imported 
into the service of Henry IV. the same sentiments and the same bearing ; he 
was still a zealous Catholic and a partisan, for king and country's sake, 
of alliance with Catholic powers. Henry IV. saw at once the advantage 
to be gained from him, and made him, on the 25th of September, 1594, 
Secretary of State for foreign affairs. This acquisition did not cost him 
so dear as that of Villars: still we read in the statement of sums paid 
by Henry IV. for this sort of conquest : — " Furthermore, to M. de Villeroi, 
for himself, his son, the town of Pontoise, and other individuals according to 
their treaty, 476,594 livres." 

Henry IV. had been absolved and crowned at St. Denis by the 
bishops of France ; he had not been annointed at Reims according to 
the religious traditions of the French monarchy. At Reims he could 
not be, for it was still in the power of the league. The ceremony took 
place at Chartres on the 27th of February, 1594; the bishop of Chartres, 



128 FRANCE.— THE REIGN OF HENRY IV. [1594 

Nicholas de Thou, officiated. Henry IV., on his knees before the grand 
altar, took the usual oath, the form of which was presented to him by 
Chancellor de Chiverny. With the exception of local accessories, which 
were acknowledged to be impossible and unnecessary, there was nothing 
lacking to this religious hallowing of his kingship. 

Henry IV. started on the 21st of March, nearly one month after the 
ceremony we have just related, from Senlis, where he had mustered his troops, 
arrived about midnight at St. Denis, and immediately began his march to 
Paris, where a strong party, headed by Brissac and D'Epinay St. Luc, stood in 
readiness to receive him. The night was dark and stormy ; thunder rumbled ; 
rain fell heavily ; the king was a little behind time. On the 22d of March, 
three of the city gates were thrown open, and the king's troops entered Paris. 
They occupied the different districts and met with no show of resistance but 
at the quay of L'Ecole, where an outpost of lanzknechts tried to stop them ; 
but they were cut in pieces or hurled into the river. Between five and six 
o'clock Henry IV., at the head of the last division, crossed the draw-bridge of 
the New Gate. Brissac, Provost I'Huillier, the sheriffs and several companies 
of burgesses advanced to meet him. At ten o'clock he was master of the 
whole city ; the districts of St. Martin, of the Temple, and St. Anthony 
alone remained still in the power of three thousand Spanish soldiers under 
the orders of their leaders, the duke of Feria and Don Diego d'Ibarra. He 
sent word to the Spaniards that they must not move from their quarters, and 
must leave Paris during the day, at the same time promising not to bear arms 
any more against him in France. They eagerly accepted these conditions. 
At three o'clock in the afternoon, ambassador, officers, and soldiers all 
evacuated Paris and set out for the Low Countries. 

After his conversion to Catholicism, the capture of Paris was the most 
decisive of the issues which made Henry IV. really king of France. The 
submission of Rouen followed almost immediately upon that of Paris ; and 
the year 1594 brought Henry a series of successes, military and civil, which 
changed very much to his advantage the position of the kingship as well as 
the general condition of the kingdom. 

The close of this happy and glorious year was at hand. On the 27th of 
September, between 6 and 7 P.M., a deplorable incident occurred, for 
the second time, to call Henry IV.'s attention to the weak side of his position. 
An attempt upon his life had already been made by a fanatic named Barriere ; 
now it was a young man of nineteen, son of a cloth-merchant in the city, 
who, acting under the influence of the Jesuits, tried to murder the. king. He 
was arrested and put to death, a decree of the parliament of Paris being at 
the same time (December 29th, 1594) issued against the Jesuits. 

In the mean while Philip II. persisted in his active hostility and continued 
to give the king of France no title but that of prince of Bearn. On the 17th 
of January, 1595, Henry, in performance of what he had proclaimed, formally 
declared war against the king of Spain, forbade his subjects to have any 
commerce with him or his allies, and ordered them to make war on him for 



1598] FRANCE.— THE REIGN OF HENRY IV. 129 

the future, just as he persisted in making it on France. The conflict thus 
solemnly begun lasted three years and three months, from the 17th of 
January, 1595, to the ist of May, 1598, from Henry IV.'s declaration of war 
to the peace of Vervins, which preceded by only four months and thirteen 
days the death of Philip II. and the end of the preponderance of Spain in 
Europe. The battle of Fontaine-Francaise (5th June) was a brilliant evidence 
that Navarre while becoming a monarch had not forgotten to be a soldier. 
The absolution at last granted by Pope Clement VIII. proved of the utmost 
benefit to the king. The king of Spain at last consented to accept terms of 
agreement (Peace of Vervins, May 2d) ; and as the promulgation of the edict 
of Nantes (April 13th) had put an end to the wars of religion, so by the treaty 
with Philip II. a long period of foreign wars w^as terminated. 

A month before the conclusion of the treaty of peace at Vervins with 
Philip. II., Henry IV. had signed and published at Paris on the 13th of April, 
1598,^ the edict of Nantes, his treaty of peace with the Protestant malcontents. 
This treaty, drawn up in ninety-two open and fifty-six secret articles, was a 
code of old and new laws regulating the civil and religious position of 
Protestants in France, the conditions and guarantees of their worship, their 
liberties and their special obligations in their relations, whether with the 
crown or with their Catholic fellow-countrymen. By this code Henry IV. 
added a great deal to the rights of the Protestants and to the duties of the 
State toward them. The State was charged with the duty of providing for 
the salaries of the Protestant ministers and rectors in their colleges or 
schools, and an annual sum of one hundred and sixty-five thousand livres of 
those times (four hundred and ninety-five thousand francs of the present day) 
was allowed for that purpose. Donations and legacies to be so applied were 
authorized. The children of Protestants were admitted into the universities, 
colleges, schools and hospitals, without distinction between them and 
Catholics. There was great difificulty in securing for them, in all the 
parliaments of the kingdom, impartial justice ; and a special chamber, called 
the edict-chamber, was instituted for the trial of all causes in which they were 
interested. Catholic judges could not sit in this chamber unless with their 
consent and on their presentation. The edict of Nantes retained, at first for 
eight years and then for four more, in the hands of the Protestants the towns 
which war or treaties had put in their possession, and which numbered, it is 
said, two hundred. The king was bound to bear the burthen of keeping up 
their fortifications and paying their garrisons ; and Henry IV. devoted to that 
object five hundred and forty thousand livres of those times, or about two 
million francs of our day. 

Whatever their imperfections and the objections that might be raised to 
them, the peace of Vervins and the edict of Nantes were, amid the obstacles 
and perils encountered at every step by the government of Henry IV., the 
two most timely and most beneficial acts in the world for France. 

Four months after the conclusion of the treaty of Vervins, on the 13th 
of September, 1598, Philip II. died at the Escurial, and on the 3d of April, 
9 



I30 FRANCE.— THE REIGN OF HENRY IV. [1598. 

1603, a second great royal personage, Queen Elizabeth, disappeared from the 
scene. Thus at the beginning of the seventeenth century Henry IV. was the 
only one remaining of the three great sovereigns who, during the sixteenth, 
had disputed, as regarded religion and politics, the preponderance in Europe. 
He had succeeded in all his kingly enterprises ; he had become a Catholic in 
France without ceasing to be the prop of the Protestants in Europe ; he had 
made peace with Spain without embroiling himself with England, Holland 
and Lutheran Germany. It was just then that he gave the strongest proof of 
his great judgment and political sagacity ; he was not intoxicated with 
success; he did not abuse his power; he concerned himself chiefly with the 
establishment of public order in his kingdom and with his people's prosperity- 
Henry IV. had a sympathetic nature ; his grandeur did not lead him to 
forget the nameless multitudes whose fate depended upon his government. 
He had, besides, the rich, productive, varied, inquiring mind of one who took 
an interest not only in the welfare of the French peasantry, but in the 
progress of the whole French community, progress agricultural, industrial,, 
commercial, scientific, and literary. 

Abroad the policy of Henry IV. was as judicious and far-sighted as it 
was just and sympathetic at home. There has been much writing and 
dissertation about what has been called his gj'and design. This name has been, 
given to a plan for the religious and political organization of Christendom, 
consisting in the division of Europe among three religions, the Catholic, the. 
Calvinistic and the Lutheran, and into fifteen States, great or small,, 
monarchical or republican, with equal rights, alone recognized as members of 
the Christian confederation, regulating in concert their common affairs and 
pacifically making up their differences, while all the while preserving their 
national existence. The grand design, so far as Henry IV. was concerned, was 
never a definite project. His true external policy was much more real and 
practical. When he became the most puissant and most regarded of 
European kings, he set his heart very strongly on two things, toleration for 
the three religions which had succeeded in establishing themselves in Europe 
and showing themselves capable of contending one against another, and the 
abasement of the house of Austria, which, even after the death of Charles V. 
and of Philip II., remained the real and the formidable rival of France. The 
external policy of Henry IV. from the treaty of Vervins to his death was 
religious peace in Europe and the alliance of Catholic France with Protestant 
England and Germany against Spain and Austria. 

Four men, very unequal in influence as well as merit. Sully, Villeroi, Du 
Plessis-Mornay, and D'Aubignd^ did Henry IV. effective service, by very 
different processes and in very different degrees, toward establishing and 
rendering successful this internal and external policy. Three were Protestants ; 
Villeroi alone was a Catholic. Sully is beyond comparison with the other 
three. He is the only one whom Henry IV. called my friend ; the only one 
who had participated in all the life and all the government of Henry IV., his 
eivil as well as his exalted fortunes, his most painful embarrassments at home 



i6oo] FRANCE.— THE REIGN OF HENRY IV. 131 

as well as his greatest political acts ; the only one whose name has remained 
inseparably connected with that of a master whom he served without servility 
as well as without any attempt to domineer. 

Henry IV. made so great a case of Villeroi's co-operation and influence 
that, without loving him as he loved Sully, he upheld him and kept him as 
Secretary of State for foreign affairs to the end of his reign. 

Philip du Plessis-Mornay occupied a smaller place than Sully and 
Villeroi in the government of Henry IV. , but he held and deserves to keep 
a great one in the history of his times. He was the most eminent and also 
the most moderate of the men of profound piety and conviction of whom the 
Reformation had made a complete conquest, soul and body, and who placed 
their public fidelity to their religious creed above every other interest and 
every other affair in this world. 

A third Protestant, Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne' grandfather of Madame 
de Maintenon, has been reckoned here among, not the councilors, certainly, 
but the familiar and still celebrated servants of Henry IV. He held no great 
post and had no great influence with the king ; he was, on every occasion, a 
valiant soldier, a zealous Protestant, an indefatigable lover and seeker of 
adventure, sometimes an independent thinker, frequently an eloquent and 
bold speaker, always a very sprightly companion. 

These politicians, these Christians, these warriors had, in 1600, a grave 
question to solve for Henry IV. and grave counsel to give him. He was 
anxious to separate from his wife, Marguerite de Valois, who had, in fact, 
been separated from him for the last fifteen years, was leading a very irregular 
life, and had not brought him any children. But in order to obtain from the 
pope annulment of the marriage it was first necessary that Marguerite 
should agree to it, and at no price would she yield so long as the king's 
favorite continued to be Gabrielle d'Estrees, whom she detested and by whom 
Henry already had several children. In consequence, however, of the 
favorite's sudden death (April loth, 1599), the consent of Marguerite de Valois 
to the annulment of her marriage was obtained ; and negotiations were 
opened at Rome by Arnauld d'Ossat, who was made a cardinal, and by 
Brulart de Sillery, ambassador ad hoc. 

Clement VIII. pronounced on the 17th of December, 1599, and trans- 
mitted to Paris by Cardinal de Jpyeuse the decree of annulment. On the 6th 
of January, 1600, Henry IV. gave his ambassador, Brulart de Sillery, powers 
to conclude at Florence his marriage with Mary .de' Medici, daughter of 
Francis I. de' Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, and Joan, archduchess of 
Austria. As early as the year 1592 there had been something said about this 
project of alliance ; it was resumed and carried out on the 5th of October, 
1600, at Florence, with lavish magnificence. Mary embarked at Leg-horn on 
the 17th with a fleet of seventeen galleys ; she arrived at Marseilles on 
the 3d of November and at Lyons on the 2d of December, where she waited 
till the 9th for the king, \vlio was detailed by the war with Savoy. He 
entered her chamber in the middle of the night, booted and armed, and next 



132 FRANCE.— THE REIGN OF HENRY IV. [1601 

day, in the cathedral church of St. John, re-celebrated his marriage, more rich 
in wealth than it was destined to be in happiness. 

Henry IV. seemed to have attained in his public and in his domestic life 
the pinnacle of earthly fortune and ambition. He was, at one and the same 
time, Catholic king and the head of the Protestant polity in Europe, accepted 
by the Catholics as the best, the only possible, king for them in France. He was 
at peace with all Europe, except one petty prince, the duke of Savoy, Charles 
Emmanuel I., from whom he demanded back the marquisate of Saluzzo or a 
territorial compensation in France itself on the French side of the Alps. 
After a short campaign, and thanks to Rosny's ordnance, he obtained what he 
desired, and by a treaty of January 17th, 1601, he added to French territory 
La Bresse, Le Bugey, the district of Gex and the citadel of Bourg, which still 
held out after the capture of the town. 

The queen's coronation had been proclaimed on the 12th of May, 1610 ; 
she was to be crowned next day the 13th at St. Denis, and Sunday the i6th 
had been appointed for her to make her entry into. Paris. On Friday the 14th 
the king had an idea of going to the Arsenal to see Sully, who was ill ; we 
have the account of this visit and of the assassination given by Malherbe, at 
that time attached to the service of Henry IV., in a letter written on the 19th 
of May from the reports of eye-witnesses. 

" At last he made up his mind to go, and having kissed the queen several 
times, bade her adieu. Among other things that were remarked he said to 
her, ' I shall only go there and back ; I shall be here again almost directly.' 
When he got to the bottom of the steps where his carriage was waiting for 
him, M. de Praslin, his captain of the guard, would have attended him, but 
he said to him, ' Get you gone ; I want nobody ; go about your business.' 

" Thus, having about him only a few gentlemen and some footmen, he 
got into his carriage, took his place on the back seat at the left-hand side, and 
made M. d'Epernon sit at the right. When he came to the Croix-du-Tiroir 
he was asked whither it was his pleasure to go ; he gave orders to go toward 
St. Innocent. On arriving at Rue de la Ferronnerie, which is at the end of 
that of St. Honore on the way to that of St. Denis, opposite the Salamandre 
he met a cart which obliged the king's carriage to go nearer to the iron- 
mongers' shops which are on the St. Innocent side, and even to proceed some- 
what more slowly, without stopping. Here it was that an abominable assassin, 
who had posted himself against the nearest shop, darted upon the king and 
dealt him, one after the other, two bloAvs with a knife in the left side ; one, 
catching him between the arm-pit and the nipple, went upward without doing 
more than graze ; the other catches him between the fifth and sixth ribs, and, 
taking a downward direction, cuts a large artery of those called venous. He 
uttered a low cry and made a few movements. 

" In a moment the carriage turned toward the Louvre. When he was at 
the steps where he had got into the carriage, which are those of the queen's 
rooms, some Avine was given him. Of course some one had already run 
forward to bear the news. I tell you nothing about the queen's tears ; all 



i6i7] FRANCE.— THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIII. 133 

that must be imagined. As for the people of Paris, I think they never wept 
so much as on this occasion." 

On the king's death — and at the imperious instance of the duke of Epernon, 
who at once introduced the queen, and said in open session, as he exhibited 
his sword, " It is as yet in the scabbard, but it will have to leap therefrom 
unless this moment there be granted to the queen a title which is her due 
according to the order of nature and of justice," — the Parliament forthwith 
declared Mary regent of the kingdom. Thanks to Sully's firm administration, 
there were, after the ordinary annual expenses were paid, at that time in the 
vaults of the Bastile or in securities easily realizable, forty-one million three 
hundred and forty-five thousand livres, and there was nothine to sup-g-est that 
extraordinary and urgent expenses would come to curtail this substantial 
reserve. The army was disbanded and reduced to from twelve to fifteen 
thousand men, French or Swiss. For a long time past no power in France 
had, at its accession, possessed so much material strength and so much moral 
authority. Henry IV.'s first wife, the sprightly and too facile Marguerite de 
Valois, was dead also, after consenting to descend from the throne in order to 
make way for the mediocre Mary de' Medici. The Catholic champion whom 
Henry IV. felicitated himself upon being able to oppose to Du Plessis-Mornay 
in the polemical conferences between the two communions, Cardinal de Perron, 
was at the point of death. The decay was general and the same among the 
Protestants as among the Catholics ; Sully and Mornay held themselves aloof 
or were barely listened to. In place of these eminent personages had come 
intriguing or ambitious subordinates, who were either innocent of, or indiffer- 
ent to, anything like a great policy, and who had no idea beyond themselves 
and their fortunes. The chief among them were Leonora Galigai, daughter 
of the queen's nurse, and her husband, Concino Concini, son of a Florentine 
notary, both of them full of coarse ambition, covetous, vain and determined 
to make the best of their new position, so as to enrich themselves and exalt 
themselves beyond measure and at any price. The husband of Leonora 
Galigai, Concini, had amassed a great deal of money and purchased the 
marquisate of Ancre ; nay, more, he had been created marshal of France. 
Louis XIII. had among his personal attendants a young nobleman, Albert de 
Luynes, clever in training little sporting birds, called butcher-birds {pics 
gricchcs or shrikes), then all the rage ; and the king made him his falconer and 
lived on familiar terms with him. Playing at billiards one day, Marshal 
d'Ancre, putting on his hat, said to the king, " I hope your majesty will allow 
me to be covered." The king allowed it ; but remained surprised and shocked. 
His young page, Albert de Luynes, observed his displeasure, and being 
anxious himself also to become a favorite he took pains to fan it. A 
domestic plot was set hatching against Marshal d'Ancre, who was shot down 
on the bridge of the Louvre (April 24th, 161 7) by M. de Vitry, captain of the 
guard. Shortly after, Leonora Galigai, accused of witchcraft, was beheaded 
on the Place de Greve, and her body committed to the flames. 

Concini and his wife, both of them, probably, in the secret service of the 



134 



FRANCE.— THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIII. [1617 



court of Madrid, had promoted the marriage of Louis XIII. with the infanta 
Anne of Austria, eldest daughter of Philip III,, king of Spain, and that of 
Philip, infanta of Spain, who was afterward Philip IV., with Princess Eliza- 
beth of France, sister of Louis XIII. Henry IV., in his plan for the pacifica- 
tion of Europe, had himself conceived this idea and testified a desire for this 
double marriage, but without taking any trouble to bring it about. It was 
after his death that, on the 30th of April, 161 2, Villeroi, minister of foreign 
affairs in France, and Don Inigo de Cardenas, ambassador of the king of 
Spain, concluded this double union by a formal deed. The States-general 
were convoked first for the i6th of September, 1614, at Sens; and, afterward, 
for the 20th of October following, when the young king, Louis XIII., after 
the announcement of his majority, himself opened them in state. The chief 
political fact connected with the convocation of the States-general of 1614 
was the entry into their ranks of the youthful bishop of Lucon, Armand John 
du Plessis de Richelieu, marked out by the finger of God to sustain, after the 
powerful reign of Henry IV. and the incapable regency of Mary de' Medici, 
the weight of the government of France. 

He had even then acquired among the clergy and at the court of Louis 
XIII. sufficient importance to be charged with the duty of speaking in pres- 
ence of the king on the acceptance of the acts of the council of Trent and on 
the restitution of certain property belonging to the Catholic Church in Beam. 
He made skillful use of the occasion for the purpose of still further exalting 
and improving the question and his own position. The post of almoner to 
the queen-regnant, Anne of Austria, was his reward. He carried still further 
his ambitious foresight ; in February, 161 5, at the time when the session of 
the States-general closed, Marshal d'Ancre and Leonora Galigai were still 
favorites with the queen-mother ; Richelieu laid himself out to be pleasant to 
them, and received from the marshal in 1616 the post of secretary of State 
for war and foreign affairs. Marshal d'Ancre was at that time looking out for 
supports against his imminent downfall. When, in 161 7, he fell and was 
massacred, people were astonished to find Richelieu on good terms with the 
marshal's court-rival, Albert de Luynes, who pressed him to remain in the 
council at which he had sat for only five months. He would, he said, be more 
useful to the government of the young king ; for, by remaining at the side of 
Mary de' Medici, he would be able to advise and restrain her. 

The astute minister contrived to interest both parties on his behalf. To 
the court he adduced his withdrawal from public business as a proof of the 
most absolute submission ; to Mary de' Medici he described it as the result of 
his unremitting zeal for her service, and as a new persecution on the part of 
her enemies. He thus contrived to weather the storm ; and when the excite- 
ment produced by the catastrophe of Concini had subsided, he looked round 
to see what could be done. The bishop of Lucon, through his determina- 
tion, his intrigues, his unscrupulous conduct, had become a dangerous person- 
age ; he was first ordered to return to his priory at Coussay, then to his epis- 
copal palace, and finally he was banished to Avignon. There he seemed 



i622] FRANCE.— THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIII. 135 

determined upon leading a life of seclusion, and a casual observer, anxious 
to know how he spent his time, would have found him busily employed in 
writing theological works. This, of course, was merely a feint, and when 
Mary de' Medici contrived to escape from Blois, he joined her without any 
further delay. By his influence, the whole of the Anjou nobility — the dukes 
De Longueville, De Bouillon, D'Epernon — rallied round the standard of the 
queen. A battle was fought at Pont-de-Ce, near Angers, where the rebel 
troops met with a signal defeat. A treaty, nevertheless, concluded shortly 
after, secured to Richelieu almost as many advantages as if he, and not De 
Luynes, had triumphed. The queen received permission to return to court, 
Avith the full enjoyment of all the privileges and honors due to her rank ; and 
the king pledged himself to solicit a cardinal's hat for Richelieu, whose niece, 
Mademoiselle de Pont-Courlay, married the Marquis de Combalet, nephew of 
De Luynes (1619-20). 

Albert de Luynes came out of this crisis well content. He felicitated 
himself on the king's victory over the queen-mother, for he might consider 
the triumph as his own ; he had advised and supported the king's steady resist- 
ance to his mother's enterprises. Besides, he had gained by it the rank and 
power of constable ; it was at this period that he obtained them, thanks to 
the retirement of Lesdiguieres, who gave them up to assume the title of 
marshal-general of the king's camps and armies. The royal favor did not 
stop there for Luynes; the keeper of the seals, Du Vair, died in 1621 ; and 
the king handed over the seals to the new constable, who thus united the 
military authority with that of justice, without being either a great warrior or 
a great lawyer. 

The favorite now turned his attention to the Protestants, and he pretended 
to compel those of Beam and Navarre to restore what he designed as secular- 
ized Church property. A general rising was the consequence ; in order to 
quell it, De Luynes took the command of an army of fifteen thousand men and 
laid siege before Montauban. The siege proved, however, more difficult than 
had been anticipated; the royal troops were compelled tonvithdraw : and De 
Luynes, having caught fever while attacking the smaller town of Monheurt, 
on the banks of the Garonne, died on the 14th of December. 

Richelieu, created a cardinal in 1622, set his face steadily against 
all the influences of the great lords ; he broke them down one after 
another ; he presistently elevated the royal authority. It was the hand 
of Richelieu which made the court and paved the way for the reign of 
Louis X.IV. The Fronde was but a paltry interlude and a sanguinary 
game between parties. At Richelieu's death, pure monarchy was founded. 

In the month of December, 1622, the work was as yet full of 
difficulty. There were numerous rivals for the heritage of royal favor 
that had slipped from the dying hands of Luynes. The first victim of 
Richelieu's stern home policy proved to be Colonel Ornano, lately created 
a marshal at the duke of Anjou's request ; he was arrested and carried 
off a prisoner " to the very room where, twenty-four years ago, Marshal 



136 FRANCE.— THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIII. [1624 

Biron had been confined." Richelieu was neither meddlesome nor cruel, 
but he was pitiless toward the sufferings as well as the supplication of 
those who sought to thwart his policy. Thus again, Henry de Talley- 
rand, count of Chalais, master of the wardrobe, hare-brained and frivolous, 
had hitherto made himself talked about only for his duels and his 
successes with women. He had already been drawn into a plot against 
the cardinal's life ; but, under the influence of remorse, he had confessed 
his criminal intentions to the minister himself. Richelieu appeared touched 
by the repentance, but he did not forget the offense, and his watch 
over this " unfortunate gentleman," as he himself calls him, made him 
aware before long that Chalais was compromised in an intrigue which 
aimed at nothing less, it was said, than to secure the person of the 
cardinal by means of an ambush, so as to get rid of him at need. 
Chalais was arrested in his bed on the 8th of July, and condemned to 
death on the i8th of August, 1626. 

At the outset of his ministry, in 1624, Richelieu had obtained from 
the king a severe ordinance against duels, a fatal custom which was at 
that time decimating the noblesse. Already several noblemen, among 
others M. du Plessis-Praslin, had been deprived of their ofHces, or sent 
into exile in consequence of their duels, when M. de Bouteville, of the 
house of Montmorency, who had been previously engaged in twenty-one 
affairs of honor, came to Paris to fight the marquis of Beuvron on the 
Place Royale. The marquis's second, M. de Bussy d'Amboise, was killed 
by the count of Chapelles, Bouteville's second. Beuvron fled to England. 
M. de Bouteville and his comrade had taken post for Lorraine ; they 
were recognized and arrested at Vitry-le-Brule, and brought back to Paris ; 
and the king immediately ordered parliament to bring them to trial. 
The crime was flagrant, and the defiance of the king's orders undeniable ; 
but the culprit was connected with the greatest houses in the kingdom : 
he had given striking proofs of bravery in the king's service ; and all 
the court interceded for him. Parliament, with regret, pronounced condem- 
nation, absolving the memory of Bussy d'Amboise, who was the son of 
President de Mesmes's wife, and reducing to one-third of their goods the 
confiscation to which the condemned were sentenced. 

The enemies of Richelieu had not renounced the idea of over- 
throwing him, their hopes even went on growing, since, for some time past, 
the queen-mother had been waxing jealous of the all-powerful minister, 
and no longer made common cause with him. The king was danger- 
ously ill at Lyons ; they thought the opportunity too good to be lost ; 
and indeed managed so well that when the court returned to Paris, the 
cardinal's disgrace seemed inevitable. But he determined upon making a 
final effort, and securing an interview of a quarter of an hour with Louis 
XIII., at Versailles, he frightened the monarch, and left the palace as 
powerful as ever. Marshal Marillac had to pay for the rest ; seized in 
the middle of his army, he was tried before a court composed of his 



1632] FRANCE.— THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIII. 137 

private enemies, and in the cardinal's own palace, at Ruel. Of course, 
under such circumstances, it was useless to expect mercy ; the unfortu- 
nate warrior was beheaded. Assisted by the Duke de Lorraine, whose 
daughter he had married, Gaston raised an army of brigands, as they 
have justly been termed. A battle was fought at Castelnaudary (1632); 
the king's troops were victorious, and Montmorency shared the fate of 
Marillac, while Gaston d'Orleans " swore by the faith of a gentleman that 
he would ever be my lord the cardinal's best friend." 

Women filled but a short space in the life of Louis XIII. Twice, 
however, in that interval of ten years which separated the plot of 
Montmorency from that of Cinq-Mars, did the minister believe himself 
to be threatened by feminine influence ; and twice he used artifice to 
win the monarch's heart and confidence from two young girls of his 
court, Louise de Lafayette and Marie d'Hautefort. Both were maids of 
honor to the queen. 

Louis XIII. 's fancies were never of long duration, and his growing 
affection for young Cinq-Mars, son of Marshal d'Effiat, led him to sacrifice 
Mdlle. d'Hautefort. The cardinal merely asked him to send her away for 
a fortnight. She insisted upon hearing the order from the king's own 
mouth. " The fortnight will last all the rest of my life," she said : " and 
so I take leave of your Majesty forever." 

M. de Cinq-Mars was only nineteen when he was made master of 
the wardrobe and grand equerry of France. Brilliant and witty he amused 
the king and occupied the leisure which peace gave him. 

Then began a series of negotiations and intrigues : the duke of Orleans 
had come back to Paris ; the king was ill and the cardinal more so than 
he ; thence arose conjectures and insenate hopes. The duke of Bouillon, 
being sent for by the king, who confided to him the command of the 
army of Italy, was at the same time drawn into the plot, which was 
beginning to be woven against the minister ; the duke of Orleans and 
the queen were in it ; and the town of Sedan, of which Bouillon was 
prince-sovereign, was wanted to serve the authors of the conspiracy as 
an asylum in case of reverse. Sedan alone was not sufficient ; there 
was need of an army. Whence was it to come? Thoughts naturally 
turned toward Spain. A negotiation was therefore concluded at Madrid, 
by Fontrailles, in the name of the duke of Orleans, and a copy of it 
soon found its way to Richelieu's study. 

The king could not believe his eyes ; and his wrath equaled his astonish- 
ment. Together with that of the grand equerry, he ordered the immediate 
arrest of M. de Thou, his intimate friend; and the order went out to 
secure the duke of Bouillon, then at the head of the army of Italy. 
He, caught like Marshal Marillac in the midst of his troops, had vainly 
attempted to conceal himself ; but he was taken and conducted to the 
castle of Pignerol. 

The two accused denied nothing: M. de Thou merely maintained 



138 



FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. 



[1633 



that he had not been in any way mixed up with the conspiracy, proving 
that he had planned the treaty with Spain, and that his only crime was 
not having revealed it. The last tragic scene was not destined to be 
long deferred ; the very day on which the sentence was delivered saw 
the execution of it. "We have seen," says a report of the time, "the 
favorite of the greatest and most just of kings lose his head upon the 
scaffold at the age of twenty-two, but with a firmness which has scarcely 
its parallel in our histories. We have seen a councillor of State die like 
a saint after a crime which men can not justly pardon. There is nobody 
in the world who, knowing of their conspiracy against the State, does 
not think them worthy of death, and there will be few who, having 
knowledge of their rank and their fine natural qualities, will not mourn 
their sad fate. At the last hour, and at the bottom of their hearts, 
the frivolous courtier and the hare-brained conspirator, as well as the brave 
.soldier and the grave magistrate, had recovered their faith in God. 



X. 




MLM Al lAMN. 



HE French parliaments, and in particular the parlia- 
ment of Paris, had often assumed the right, without 
the royal order, of summoning the princes, dukes, peers 
and officers of the crown to deliberate upon what 
was to be done for the service of the king, the 
good of the State, and the relief of the people. 
This pretension on the part of the parliaments was what 
^ Cardinal Richelieu was continually fighting against. He would 
not allow the intervention of the magistrates in the govern- 
ment of the State. When he took the power into his hands, 
nine parliaments sat in France- — Paris, Toulouse, Grenoble, 
Bordeaux, Dijon, Rouen, Aix, Rennes, and Pau : he created 
but one, that of Metz, in 1633, to sever in a definitive manner 
the bonds which still attached the three bishoprics to the 
Germanic Empire. Trials at that time were carried in the 
last resort to Spires. 
A notification of the king's, published in 1641, prohibited the parliament 
from any interference in affairs of State and administration. The cardinal 
had gained the victory ; parliament bowed the head ; its attempts at 
independence during the Fronde were but a flash, and the yoke of Louis 
XIV. became the more heavy for it. 

Though ever first in the breach, the parliament of Paris w^as not alone in 
its opposition to the cardinal. The parliament of Rouen had always passed 



i637] FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. 139 

for one of the most recalcitrant. The province of Normandy was rich and, 
consequently, overwhelmed with imposts ; and several times the parliament 
refused to enregister financial edicts which still further aggravated the distress 
of the people. In 1637 the king threatened to go in person to Rouen and 
bring the parliament to submission, whereat it took fright and enregistered 
decrees for twenty-two millions. It was, no doubt, this augmentation of 
imposts that brought about the revolt of the Nii-picds {Bare foots) in 1639. 
Before now, in 1624 and in 1637, in Perigord and Rouergue, two popular 
risings of the same sort, under the name of Croqiiants {Paupers), had disquieted 
the authorities, and the governor of the province had found some trouble in 
putting them down. The Nii-picds were more numerous and more violent 
still ; from Rouen to Avranches all the country was ablaze. At Coutances 
and at Vire, several monopolicrs and gabclcnrs, as the fiscal ofificers were called, 
were massacred ; a great number of houses were burnt, and most of the 
receiving-ofifices were pulled down or pillaged. Everywhere the army of 
suffering {a7'incc de soiiffrance), the name given by the revolters to themselves, 
made appeal to violent passions ; popular rhymes were circulated from hand 
to hand, in the name of General Nu-picd {Barefoot), an imaginary personage 
whom nobody ever saw. 

Colonel Gassion, a good soldier and an inflexible character, was sent to 
put down the rebellion. First at Caen, then at Avranches, where there was 
fighting to be done, at Coutances and at Elbeuf, Gassion's soldiery everywhere 
left the country behind them in subjection, in ruin and in despair. They 
entered Rouen on the 31st of December, 1639, and on the 2d of January, 
1640, the chancellor himself arrived to do justice on the rebels heaped up in 
the prisons, whom the parliament dared not bring up for judgment. The 
province and its parliament were henceforth reduced to submission. 

It was not only the parliaments that resisted the efforts of Cardinal 
Richelieu to concentrate all the power of the government in the hands of the 
king. From the time that the sovereigns had given up convoking the States- 
general, the States-provincial had alone preserved the right of bringing to the 
foot of the throne the plaints and petitions of subjects. Unhappily few 
provinces enjoyed this privilege : Languedoc, Brittany, Burgundy, Provence, 
Dauphiny, and the countship of Pau alone Avere Statcs-distriets, that is to sa}', 
allowed to tax themselves independently and govern themselves to a certain 
extent. Normandy, though an elections-district, and, as such, subject to the 
royal agents in respect of finance, had States which continued to meet even 
in 1666. The States-provincial were always convoked by the king, who fixed 
the place and duration of assembly. 

The composition of the States-provincial varied a great deal, according 
to the district. 

As a sequel to the systematic humiliation of the great lords, even when 
provincial governors, and to the gradual enfeeblement of provincial institu- 
tions, Richelieu had to create in all parts of France, still so diverse in 
organization as well as in manners, representatives of the kingly power, of 



140 FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. [1637 

too modest and feeble a type to do without him, but capable of applying his 
measures and making his wishes respected. Before now the kings of France 
had several times over perceived the necessity of keeping up a supervision over, 
the conduct of their ofBcers in the provinces. Richelieu substituted for these 
shifting commissions a fixed and regular institution, and in 1637 he established 
in all the provinces overseers oi justice, police, and finance, -^^^.o were chosen 
for the most part from among the burgesses, and who before long concen- 
trated in their hands the whole administration and maintained the struggle of 
the kingly power against the governors, the sovereign courts and the States- 
provincial. 

At the time when the overseers of provinces were instituted, the battle 
of pure monarchy was gained ; Richelieu had no further need of allies, he 
wanted mere subjects ; but at the beginning of his ministry he had felt the 
need of throwing himself sometimes for support on the nation, and this great 
foe of the States-general had twice convoked the assembly of notables. The 
first took place at Fontainebleau, in 1625-6, and the second, during the 
following year, after the conspiracy of Chalais. It was the notables who 
preserved in the hands of the inflexible minister the terrible weapon of which 
he availed himself so often. The assembly separated on the 24th of February, 
1627, the last that was convoked before the revolution of 1789. It was in 
answer to its demands, as well as to those of the States of 1614, that the 
keeper of the seals, Michael Marillac, drew up, in 1629, the important 
administrative ordinance which has preserved from its author's name the title 
of Code MichaiL. 

The cardinal had propounded to the notables a question which he had 
greatly at heart, the foundation of a navy. Harbors repaired and fortified, 
arsenals established at various points on the coast, organization of marine 
regiments, foundations of pilot-schools, in fact, the creation of a powerful 
marine which, in 1642, numbered sixty-three vessels and twenty-two galleys, 
that left the roads of Barcelona after the rejoicings for the capture of 
Perpignan and arrived the same evening at Toulon — such were the fruits of 
Richelieu's administration of naval affairs. 

Richelieu labored for Catholicism while securing for himself Protestant 
alliances, and if the independence of his mind caused him to feel the 
necessity for a reformation, it was still in the Church and by the Church that 
he would have had it accomplished. 

Mid all the diplomatic negotiations which he undertook in Richelieu's 
name and the intrigues he, with the queen-mother, often hatched against him. 
Cardinal Berulle founded the congregation of the Oratory, designed to train 
up well-informed and pious young priests with a capacity for devoting them- 
selves to the education of children as well as the edification of the people. 
It was, again, under his inspiration the order of Carmelites, hitherto confined 
to Spain, was founded in France. The convent in Rue St. Jacques soon 
numbered among its penitents women of the highest rank. 

Some time before, in 1610, St. Francis de Sales had founded, under the 



1638] FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. 141 

direction of Madame de Chantal, the order of Visitation, whose duty was the 
care of the sick and poor ; he had left the direction of his new institution to 
M. Vincent, as was at that time the appellation of the poor priest without 
birth and without fortune who was one day to be celebrated throughout the 
world under the name of St. Vincent de Paul. This direction was not enough 
to satisfy his zeal for charity ; children and sick, the ignorant and the convict, 
all those who suffered in body or spirit, seemed to summon M. Vincent to 
their aid. St. Vincent de Paul had confidence in human nature, and ever}-- 
where on his path sprang up good works in response to his appeals : the 
foundation of Mission-priests or Lazarists, designed originally to spread about 
in the rural districts the knowledge of God, still testifies in the East, whither 
they carry at one and the same time the Gospel and the name of France, 
to that great awakening of Christian charity which signalized the reign of 
Louis XIII. 

Nowhere was this fluctuating idea of the sacrifice, the immolation of 
man for God and of the present in prospect of eternity, more rigorously 
understood and practiced than among the disciples of John du Vergier de 
Hauranne, abbot of St. Cyran. He wrote also, and his book, " Petrus 
Aiireliiis^' published under the veil of the anonymous, excited a great stir by 
its defense of the rights of the bishops against the monks and even against 
the pope. The Galilean bishops welcomed at that time with lively 
satisfaction its eloquent pleadings in favor of their cause. But, at a later 
period, the French clergy discovered in St. Cyran's book free-thinking 
concealed under dogmatic forms. " In case of heresy any Christian may 
become judge," says Petrus Aurelius. So M. de St. Cyran was condemned- 
He had been already signaled out as dangerous by an enemy more 
formidable than the assemblies of the clergy of France. Cardinal Richelieu, 
naturally attracted toward greatness as he was at a later period toward the 
infant prodigy of the Pascals, had been desirous of attaching St. Cyran to 
himself. But the abbot of St. Cyran would accept no yoke but God's : he 
remained independent and perhaps hostile, pursuing, without troubling him- 
self about the cardinal, the great task he had undertaken. 

Before long he had seen forming, beside Port Royal and in the solitude 
of the fields, a nucleus of penitents, emulous of the hermits of the desert. 
M. le Maitre, Mother Angelica's nephew, a celebrated advocate in the 
parliament of Paris, had quitted all " to have no speech but with God." A 
/^c^'/zV/o- penitent, he had drawn after him his brothers, MM. de Sacy and De 
Sericourt, and, ere long, young Lancelot, the learned author af Greek roots : 
all steeped in the rigors of penitential life, all blindly submissive to M. de St. 
Cyran and his saintly requirements. The director's power over so many 
eminent minds became too great. The king, being advertised, commanded 
him to be kept a prisoner in the Bois de Vincennes, where he remained up to 
tl-te death of Cardinal Richelieu. 

Cardinal Richelieu dreaded the doctrines of M. de St. Cyran, and still 
more those of the reformation, which went directly to the emancipation of 



142 FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. [1638 

souls ; but he had the wit to resist ecclesiastical encroachments, and, for all 
his being a cardinal, never did minister maintain more openly the indepen- 
dence of the civil power. " The king, in things temporal, recogizes no 
sovereign save God." That had always been the theory of the Galilean 

Church. 

The French clergy did not understand it so : they had recourse to the 

liberties of the Galilean Church in order to keep up a certain measure of 

independence as regarded Rome, but they would not give up their ancient 

privileges, and especially the right of taking an independent share in the 

public necessities without being taxed as a matter of law and obligation. 

Here it was that Cardinal Richelieu withstood them : he maintained that, the 

ecclesiastics and the brotherhoods not having the right to hold property in 

France by mortmain, the king tolerated their possession of his grace, but he 

exacted the payment of seignorial dues. The clergy at that time possessed 

more than a quarter of the property in France ; the tax to be paid amounted, 

it is said, to eighty millions. The subsidies further demanded reached a total 

of eight million six hundred livres. 

The clergy in dismay wished to convoke an assembly to determine their 
conduct : and after a great deal of difficulty it was authorized by the 
cardinal ; they consented to pay five millions and a half, the sum to which 
the minister lowered his pretensions. 

While the cardinal imposed upon the French clergy the obligations com- 
mon to all subjects, he defended the kingly power and majesty against the ul- 
tramontanes, and especially against the Jesuits; finally he turned his attention 
to the submission of the Protestants. Hostilities broke out afresh at the 
beginning of the year 1625. The peace of Montpellier had left the Protestants 
only two surety-places, Montauban and La Rochelle ; and they clung to them 
with desperation. On the 6th of January, 1625, Soubise suddenly entered the 
harbor of Le Blavet with twelve vessels, and seizing without a blow the royal 
ships, towed them off in triumph to La Rochelle, a fatal success which was to 
cost that town dear. 

The royal navy had hardly an existence ; after the capture made by 
Soubise, help had to be requested from England and Holland ; the English 
promised eight ships; the treaties with the United Provinces obliged the 
Hollanders to supply twenty, which they would gladly have refused to send 
against their brethren, if they could; the cardinal even required that the 
ships should be commanded by French captains. The siege of La Rochelle 
has become famous in history ; it lasted thirteen months, and the unfortunate 
Huguenots had to surrender, in spite of the heroism of Guiton, the mayor of 
the town, assisted by the unflinching energy of the old duchess of Rohan. 

With La Rochelle fell the last bulwark of religious liberties. Single- 
handed, Duke Henry of Rohan now resisted at the head of a handful of reso- 
lute men. But he was about to be crushed in his turn. The capture of La 
Rochelle had raised the cardinal's power to its height ; it had, simultaneously, 
been the death-blow to the Huguenot party and to the factions of the grandees. 



1638] FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. 143 

Town after town, ''fortified Huguenot-wise," surrendered, opening to the royal 
armies the passage to the Cevennes. Rohan saw that he could no longer 
impose the duty of resistance upon a people weary of suffering. He sent " to 
the king, begging to be received to mercy, thinking it better to resolve on 
peace while he could still make some show of being able to help it, than to 
be forced, after a longer resistance, to surrender to the king with a rope 
round his neck." The cardinal advised the king to show the duke grace, 
" well knowing that, together with him individually, the other cities, whether 
they wished it or not, would be obliged to do the like, there being but little 
resolution and constancy in people deprived of leaders, especially when they 
are threatened with immediate harm and see no door of escape open." 

The general assembly of the reformers, w^iich was then in meeting at 
Nimes, removed to Anduze to deliberate with the duke of Rohan. No more 
surety-towns ; fortifications everywhere razed, at the expense and by the 
hands of the reformers ; the Catholic worship re-established in all the churches 
of the reformed towns ; and, at this price, an amnesty granted for all acts of 
rebellion, and religious liberties confirmed anew — such were the conditions of 
the peace signed at Alais on the 28th of June, 1629, and made public the 
following month at Nimes under the name of Edict of grace. Montauban 
alone refused to submit to them. 

The duke of Rohan left France and retired to Venice, where his wife and 
daughter were awaiting him. He had been appointed by the Venetian senate 
generalissimo of the forces of the republic, when the cardinal, who had no 
doubt preserved some regard for his military talents, sent him an offer of the 
command of the king's troops in the Valteline. There he for several years 
maintained the honor of France, being at one time abandoned and at another 
supported by the cardinal, who ultimately left him to bear the odium of the 
last reverse. Being threatened with the king's wrath, he set out for the camp 
of his friend Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar ; and it was while fighting at his 
side against the Imperialists, that he received the wound of which he died in 
Switzerland on the i6th of April, 1638. 

Meanwhile the king had set out for Paris, and the cardinal was marching 
on Montauban. Being obliged to halt at Pezenas because he had a fever, he 
there received a deputation from Montauban, asking to have its fortifications 
preserved. On the minister's formal refusal, supported by a movement in ad- 
vance on the part of Marshal Bassompierre with the army, the town submitted 
unreservedly ; the fortifications of Castres were already beginning to fall ; and 
the Huguenot party in France was dead. This was the commencement of 
their material prosperity; they henceforth transferred to commerce and 
industry all the intelligence, courage and spirit of enterprise that they had but 
lately displayed in the service of their cause, on the battle-field, or in the cabi- 
nets of kings. 

" From that time," says Cardinal Richelieu. " difference in religion never 
prevented me from rendering the Huguenots all sorts of good offices, and I 
made no distinction between Frenchmen but in respect of fidelity." A grand 



144 FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. [1638 

assertion, true at bottom, in spite of the frequent grievances which the 
reformers had often to make the best of. 

Everywhere in Europe were marks of Richelieu's handiwork. "There 
must be no end to negotiations near and far," was his saying: he had found 
negotiations succeed in France ; he extended his views ; numerous treaties had 
already marked the early years of the cardinal's power; and, after 1630, his 
activity abroad was redoubled. Between 1623 and 1642, seventy-four treaties 
were concluded by Richelieu : four with England ; twelve with the United 
Provinces ; fifteen with the princes of Germany ; six with Sweden ; twelve 
with Savoy; six with the Republic of Venice; three with the pope ; three 
with the emperor ; two with Spain ; four with Lorraine ; one with the Gray 
Leagues of Switzerland ; one Avith Portugal ; two with the revolters of Cata- 
lonia and Roussillon; one with Russia; two with the emperor of Morocco. 
Such was the immense network of diplomatic negotiations whereof the 
cardinal held the threads during nineteen years. 

The foreign policy of Richelieu was a continuation of that of Henry IV. ; 
it was to Protestant alliances that he looked for support in order to maintain 
the struggle against the house of Austria, whether the German or Spanish 
branch. So soon as he was secure that no political discussions in France 
itself would come to thwart his foreign designs, he marched with a firm step 
toward that enfeeblemcnt of Spain and that upsetting of the empire of which 
Nani speaks; Henry IV. and Queen Elizabeth, pursuing the same end, had 
sought and found the same allies ; Richelieu had the good fortune, beyond 
theirs, to meet, for the execution of his designs, with Gustavus Adolphus, 
king of Sweden. 

The marriage of Henry IV.'s daughter with the prince of Wales was, in 
Richelieu's eyes, one of the essential acts of a policy necessary to the great- 
ness of the kingship and of France. He obtained the best conditions possible 
for the various interests involved, but without any stickling and without favor 
for such and such an one of these interests, skillfully adapting words and 
appearance, but determined upon attaining his end. 

Spain had always been the great enemy of France, and her humiliation 
was always the ultimate aim of the cardinal's foreign policy. The first was 
the question of the Valteline, a lovely and fertile valley, which, extending 
from the lake of Como to the Tyrol, thus serves as a natural communication 
between Italy and Germany. Possessed but lately, as it was, by the Gray 
Leagues of the Protestant Swiss, the Valteline, a Catholic district, had revolt- 
ed at the instigation of Spain in 1520; the emperor, Savoy and Spain wanted 
to divide the spoil between them ; when France, the old ally of the Grisons, 
interfered, and, in 1623, the forts of the Valtehne had been entrusted on 
deposit to the pope. Urban VIII. He still retained them in 1624, when the 
Grison lords, seconded by a French re-enforcement under the orders of the 
marquis of Coeuvres, attacked the feeble garrison of the Valteline ; in a few 
days they were masters of all the places in the canton, and the enemies were 
compelled to sign the peace of Moncon (1626). The Grisons remained in 



1642] FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. 145 

possession of the Valteline, Ausiria ceased to communicate with Spain, and 
Richelieu found himself, so to say, on the road to Vienna. 

While the cardinal was holding La Rochelle besieged, the duke of Man- 
tua had died in Italy, and his natural heir, Charles di Gonzaga, had hastened 
to put himself in possession of his dominions. Meanwhile the duke of Savoy 
claimed the marquisate of Montferrat ; the Spaniards supported him ; they 
entered the dominions of the duke of Mantua and laid siege to Casale. When 
La Rochelle succumbed, Casale was still holding out ; but the duke of Savoy 
had already made himself master of the greater part of Montferrat ; the duke 
of Mantua claimed the assistance of the king of France, whose subject he 
was. Here was a fresh battle-field against Spain ; and, scarcely had he been 
victorious over the Rochellese, when the king was on the march for Italy. 
The siege of Casale was raised, and, by virtue of the treaty of Suza, the duchy 
of Mantua was secured to Richelieu's /r^/^r^r, the duke of Nevers. Scarcely 
however had Louis XIII. re-crossed the Alps when an Imperialist army ad- 
vanced into the Grisons, and, supported by the celebrated Spanish general 
Spinola, laid siege to Mantua. Richelieu did not hesitate: he entered Pied- 
mont in the month of March, 1630, to march before long on Pignerol, an 
important place, commanding the passage of the Alps. It, as well as the 
citadel, was carried in a few days. The result of this fresh interposition 
was the treaty of Cherasco (1630), where the young Giulio Mazarini won his 
spurs as an able and successful diplomatist. 

The house of Austria, in fact, was threatened mortally. For two years 
Cardinal Richelieu had been laboring to carry war into its very heart. The 
Thirty Years' War, now raging in all its fury, had nicreased a hundred-fold the 
emperor's power. Richelieu's genius and activity checked the progress of the 
great Imperialist generals, and opposed to them a warrior who, in his short 
career, abundantly proved that a clever system of tactics does not always 
ensure success. Gustavus Adolphus, the hero of Zutphen, fought at the 
same time the battles of Richelieu and those of the Protestant cause. After 
the death of the king of Sweden, the position of France became for awhile 
extremely difificult. The Imperialists assumed the offensive ; they entered 
France by Burgundy and by Picardy. In the year 1640, however, Richelieu 
adopted a more expeditious plan; he occupied the Spaniards at home by 
sending support to the rebels of Catalonia and of Portugal; while, to retaliate, 
the government of Madrid espoused the cause of the duke of Orleans, and 
prepared the catastrophe which was to impart such a tragic feature to the last 
moments of the great cardinal. For several months past, Richelieu's health, 
always precarious, had taken a serious turn ; it was from his sick-bed that he, 
a prey to cruel agonies, directed the movements of the army and, at the same 
time, the prosecution of Cinq-Mars. All at once his chest was attacked ; and 
the cardinal felt that he was dying. On the 2d of December, 1642, public 
prayers were ordered in all the churches; the king went from St. Germain to 
see his minister. The cardinal was quite prepared. " I have this satisfaction," 
he said, " that I have never deserted the king, and that I leave his kingdom 



146 FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. [1642 

exalted and all his enemies abased." He commended his relatives to his 
Majesty, "who on their behalf will remember my services; " then, naming the 
two secretaries of state, Chavigny and De Noyers, he added: "Your Majesty 
has Cardinal Mazarin ; I believe him to be capable of serving the king." And 
he handed to Louis XIII. a proclamation which he had just prepared for the 
purpose of excluding the duke of Orleans from any right to the regency in 
case of the king's death. The preamble called to mind that the king had five 
times already pardoned his brother, recently engaged in a new plot against 
him. 

Richelieu's work survived him. On the very evening of the 3d of De- 
cember, Louis XIII. called to his council Cardinal Mazarin; and the next day 
he wrote to the parliaments and governors of provinces : " God having been 
pleased to take to Himself the Cardinal de Richelieu, I have resolved to pre- 
serve and keep up all establishments ordained during his ministry, to follow 
out all projects arranged with him for affairs abroad and at home, in such sort 
that there shall not be any change." Scarcely had the most powerful kings 
yielded up their last breath, when their wishes had been at once forgotten : 
Cardinal Richelieu still governed in his grave. 

The great statesman had been barely four months reposing in that chapel 
of the Sorbonne which he had himself repaired for the purpose, and already 
King Louis XIII. was sinking into the tomb. The minister had died at fifty- 
seven, the king was not yet forty-tv/o ; but his always languishing health 
seemed unable to bear the burden of affairs which had been but lately borne 
by Richelieu alone. He died on Thursday, May 14th, 1643. France 
owed to Louis XIII. eighteen years of Cardinal Richelieu's government; and 
that is a service which she can never forget. 

For sixty years a momentous crisis had been exercising language and 
literature as well as society in France. They yearned to get out of it. 
Robust intellectual culture had ceased to be the privilege of the erudite only : 
it began to gain a footing on the common domain ; people no longer wrote in 
Latin, like Erasmus ; the Reformation and the Renaissance spoke French. 
In order to sufBce for this change, the language was taking form ; everybody 
had lent a hand to the work ; Calvin with his Christian Institutes {Institittion 
Chrctienne) at the same time as Rabelais with his learned and buffoonish 
romance. Ramus with his Dialectics, and Bodin with his Republic, Henry 
Estienne with his essays in French philology, as well as Ronsard and his 
friends by their classical crusade. Simultaneously with the language there 
was being created a public intelligent, inquiring, and eager. Scarcely had the 
translation of Plutarch by Amyot appeared, when it at once became, as 
Montaigne says, " the breviary of women and of ignoramuses." 

As for Montaigne himself, an inquiring spectator, without personal 
ambition, he had taken for his life's motto, " What do I know? (Que sais-je?)" 
Amid the wars of religion he remained without political or religious passion. 

Tne sixteenth century began everything, attempted everything ; it 
accomplished and finished nothing ; its great men opened the road of the 



i65oj FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. 147 

future to France ; but they died without having brought their work well 
through, without foreseeing that it was going to be completed. The 
Reformation itself did not escape this misappreciation and discouragement of 
its age ; and nowhere do they crop out in a more striking manner than in 
Montaigne. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Rabelais, a satirist 
and a cynic, is, nevertheless, no skeptic , there is felt circulating through his 
book a glowing sap of confidence and hope. Fifty years later, Montaigne, on 
the contrary, expresses, in spite of his happy nature, in vivid, picturesque, 
exuberant language, only the lassitude of an antiquated age. " Make 
known to Monsieur de Geneve," said Henry IV. to one of the friends of St. 
Francis de Sales, " that I desire of him a work to serve as a manual for all 
persons of the court and the great world, without excepting kings and princes, 
to fit them for living Christianly, each according to their condition. I want 
this manual to be accurate, judicious, and such as any one can make use of." 
St. Francis de Sales published, in 1608, the Introduction to a Devout Life, a 
delightful and charming manual of devotion, more stern and firm in spirit 
than in form, a true Christian regimen, softened by the tact of a delicate and 
acute intellect, knowing the world and its ways. 

Rene Descartes, who was born at La Haye, near Tours, in 1596, and 
died at Stockholm in 1650, escaped the influence of Richelieu by the isolation 
to which he condemned himself, as well as by the proud and somewhat 
uncouth independence of his character. His independence of thought did 
not tend to revolt ; in publishing his Discourse on MetJwd he halted at the 
threshold of Christianism without laying his hand upon the sanctuary. 

By his philosophical method, powerful and logical, as well as by the clear, 
strong, and concise style he made use of to expound it, Descartes 
accomplished the transition from the sixteenth century to the seventeenth ; 
he was the first of the great prose-writers of that incomparable epoch,_ which 
laid forever the foundations of the language. At the same moment the great 
Corneille was rendering poetry the same service. 

It had come out of the sixteenth century more disturbed and less formed 
than prose ; Ronsard and his friends had received it, from the hands of 
Marot, quite young, unsophisticated and undecided ; they attempted, as a 
first effort, to raise it to the level of the great classic models of which their 
minds were full. The attempt was bold, and the Pleiad did not pretend to 
consult the taste of the vulgar. Peace revived with Henry IV., and the 
court, henceforth in accord with the nation, resumed that empire over taste, 
manners, and ideas, which it was destined to exercise so long and so supremely 
under Louis XIV. Malherbe became the poet of the court, whose business 
it was to please it, to adopt for it that literature which had but lately been 
reserved for the feasts of the learned. '' All the wits were received at the 
Hotel Rambouillet, whatever their condition," says M. Cousin : " all that was 
asked of them was to have good manners ; but the aristocratic tone was 
established there without any effort, the majority of the guests at the house 
being very great lords, and the mistress being at one and the same time 



148 FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. [1635 

Rambouillet and Vivonne. The wits were courted and honored, but they 
did not hold the dominion." 

Associations of the literary were not unknown in France ; Ronsard and 
his friends, at first under the name of the brigade, and then under that of the 
Pleiad, often met to read together their joint productions, and to discuss 
literary questions ; and the same thing was done, subsequently, in Malherbe's 
rooms. When Malherbe was dead, and Balzac had retired to his country- 
house on the borders of the Charente, some friends, "men of letters and of 
merits very much above the average," says Pellisson in his Histoire de 
V Acadeviie Franqaise, " finding that nothing was more inconvenient in this 
o-reat city than to go often and often to call upon one another without finding 
anybody at home, resolved to meet one day in the week at the house of one 
of them." Such were the commencements of the French Academy, which, 
even after the intervention and regulationizing of Cardinal Richelieu, still 
preserved something of that sweetness and that polished familiarity in their 
relations which caused the regrets of its earliest founders. In making of this 
little private gathering a great national institution, Cardinal Richelieu yielded 
to his natural yearning for government and dominion ; he protected literature 
as a minister and as an admirer ; the admirer's inclination was supported by 
the minister's influence. At the same time, and perhaps without being aware 
of it, he was giving French literature a center of discipline and union while 
securing for the independence and dignity of writers a supporting-point which 
they had hitherto lacked. Order and rule everywhere accompanied Cardinal 
Richelieu ; the Academy drew up its statutes, chose a director, a chancellor 
and a perpetual secretary : Conrart was the first to be called to that honor ; 
the number of Academicians was set down at forty. The letters patent for 
establishment of the French Academy had been sent to the parliament in 
1635 ; they were not enregistered until 1637, at the express instance of the 
cardinal. 

Among the earliest members of the Academy the cardinal had placed his 
most habitual and most intimate literary servants, Bois-Robert, Desmarets, 
Colletet, all writers for the theater, employed by Richelieu in his own 
dramatic attempts. Theatrical representations were the only pleasure the 
minister enjoyed, in accord with the public of his day. As for the theater, 
the cardinal aspired to try his own hand at the work : his literary labors were 
nearly all political pieces ; his tragedy of Mirame, to which he attached so 
much value, and which he had represented at such great expense for the 
opening of his theater in the Palais-Cardinal, is nothing but one continual 
allusion, often bold even to insolence, to Buckingham's feelings toward Anne 
of Austria. 

Many attempts have been made to fathom the causes of the cardinal's 
animosity to the Cid. It was a Spanish piece, and represented in a favorable 
hght the traditional enemies of France and of Richelieu ; it was all in honor 
of the duel, which the cardinal had prosecuted with such rigorous justice ; -it 
depicted a king simple, patriarchal, genial in the exercise of his power, con- 



1639] FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. 149 

trary to all the views cherished by the minister touching royal majesty; all 
these reasons might have contributed to his wrath, but there was something 
more personal and petty in its bitterness. The triumph of the Cid seemed to 
the resentful spirit of a neglected and irritated patron a sort of insult. There- 
with was mingled a certain shade of author's jealousy. Richelieu saw in the 
fame of Corneille the success of a rebel. Egged on by base and malicious 
influences, he attempted to crush him, as he had crushed the house of Austria 
and the Huguenots. 

The cabal of bad taste enlisted to a man in this new war. Scudery was 
standard-bearer; astounded that "such fantastic beauties should have seduced 
knowledge as well as ignorance." The contest was becoming fierce and bitter ; 
much was written for and against the Cid ; the public remained faithful to it ; 
the cardinal determined to submit it to the judgment of the Academy. At 
his instigation, Scudery wrote to the Academy to make them the judges in 
the dispute. The Sentiments dc I' Academic at last saw the light in the month 
of December, 1637, and, as Chapelain had foreseen, they did not completely 
satisfy either the cardinal or Scudery, or Corneille, who testified bitter dis- 
pleasure. Richelieu did not come out of it victorious ; his anger, however, 
had ceased : the duchess of Aiguillon, his niece, accepted the dedication of 
the Cid ; when Horace appeared, in 1639, the dedicatory epistle addressed to 
the cardinal proved that Corneille read his works to him beforehand ; 
" Horace, condemned by the decemvirs, was acquitted by the people," said 
Corneille. The same year Cinna came to give the finishing touch to the repu- 
tation of the great poet : 

" To the persecuted Cid the Cinna owed its birth." 

The great literary movement of the seventeenth century had begun ; it 
had no longer any need of a protector ; it was destined to grow up alone 
during twenty years, amid troubles at home and wars abroad, to flourish all 
at once, with incomparable splendor, under the reign and around the throne 
of Louis XIV. Cardinal Richelieu, however, had the honor of protecting its 
birth ; he had taken personal pleasure in it ; he had comprehended its impor- 
tance and beauty ; he had desired to serve it while taking the direction of it. 

The Academy, the Sorbonne, the Botanic Gardens (Jardin des Plantes), 
the King's Press have endured ; the theater has grown and been enriched by 
many master-pieces, the press has become the most dreaded of powers ; all the 
new forces that Richelieu created or foresaw have become developed without 
him, frequently in opposition to him and to the work of his whole life ; his 
name has remained connected with the commencement of all these wonders, 
beneficial or disastrous, which he had grasped and presaged, in a future hap- 
pily concealed from his ken. 

The declaration of Louis XIII. touching the regency had been entirely 
directed toward counteracting by anticipation the power entrusted to his wife 
and his brother. The queen's regency and the duke of Orleans' lieutenant- 
generalship were in some sort subordinated to a council " with a prohibition 
against introducing any change therein, for any cause or on any occasion 



150 FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. [1643 

whatsoever." The queen and the duke of Orleans had signed and sworn the 
declaration. 

King Louis XIII. was not yet in his grave when his last wishes were 
violated ; before his death the queen had made terms with the ministers ; the 
course to be followed had been decided. On the i8th of May, 1643, the 
queen, having brought back the little king to Paris, conducted him in great 
state to the parliament of Paris to hold his bed of justice there, and on the 
evening of the same day the queen regent, having sole charge of the adminis- 
tration of affairs, and modifying the council at her pleasure, announced to the 
astounded court that she should retain by her Cardinal Mazarin. 

A stroke of fortune came at the very first to strengthen the regent's posi- 
tion. Since the death of Cardinal Richelieu, the Spaniards, but recently 
overwhelmed at the close of 1642, had recovered courage and boldness; new 
counsels prevailed at the court of Philip IV., who had dismissed Olivarez ; the 
house of Austria vigorously resumed the offensive ; at the moment of Louis 
XIII. 's death, Don Francisco de Mello, governor of the Low Countries, had 
just invaded French territory by way of the Ardennes, and laid siege to 
Rocroi, on the 12th of May. The French army, commanded by the young 
duke of Enghien, the prince of Conde's son, scarcely twenty-two years old, 
gained a signal victory over the Spanish infantry, till then deemed invincible 

(i643)- 

Negotiations for a general peace, the preliminaries whereof had been 
signed by King Louis XIII. in 1641, had been going on since 1644 at Miinster 
and at Osnabriick, without having produced any result. Fear of having him 
unoccupied deterred the cardinal from peace, and made all the harder the 
conditions he presumed to impose upon the Spaniards. Meanwhile the 
United Provinces, weary of a war which fettered their commerce, and skill- 
fully courted by their old masters, had just concluded a private treaty with 
Spain ; the emperor was trying, but to no purpose, to detach the Swedes 
likewise from the French alliance, when the victory of Lens, gained on the 
20th of August, 1648, over Archduke Leopold and General Beck, came to 
throw into the balance the weight of a success as splendid as it was unex- 
pected ; one more campaign, and Turenne might be threatening Vienna 
while Conde entered Brussels ; the emperor saw there was no help for it and 
bent his head. The house of Austria split in two ; Spain still refused to treat 
with France, but the whole of Germany clamored for peace ; the conditions of 
it were at last drawn up at Miinster by MM. Servien and De Lionne ; M. 
d'Avaux, the most able diplomatist that France possessed, had been recalled 
to Paris at the beginning of the year. On the 24th of October, 1648, after 
four years of negotiation, France at last had secured to her Alsace and the 
three bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun ; Sweden gained Western Pome- 
rania, including Stettin, the Isle of Rugen, the three mouths of the Oder and 
the bishoprics of Bremen and Werden, thus becoming a German power ; as 
for Germany, she had won liberty of conscience and political liberty; the 
rights of the Lutheran or reformed Protestants were equalized Avith those of 



1648] FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. 151- 

Catholics ; henceforth the consent of a free assembly of all the estates of the 
empire was necessary to make laws, raise soldiers, impose taxes, and decide 
peace or war. The peace of Westphalia put an end at one and the same time 
to the Thirty Years' War and to the supremacy of the house of Austria in 
Germany. 

So much glory and so many military or diplomatic successes cost dear; 
France was crushed by imposts, and the finances were discovered to be in 
utter disorder ; the superintendent, D'Emery, an able and experienced man, 
was so justly discredited that his measures were, as a foregone conclusion, 
unpopular ; an edict laying octroi or tariff on the entry of provisions into the 
city of Paris irritated the burgesses, and parliament refused to enregister it. 
For some time past the parliament, which had been kept down by the iron 
hand of Richelieu, had perceived that it had to do with nothing more than an 
able man and not a master ; it began to hold up its head again ; a union was 
proposed between the four sovereign courts of Paris ; the queen quashed the 
deed of union ; the magistrates set her at naught ; the queen yielded, author- 
izing the delegates to deliberate in the chamber of St. Louis at the Palace of 
Justice; the pretensions of the parliament were exorbitant ; the concessions 
which Cardinal Mazarin with difficulty wrung from the queen augmented the 
parliament's demands. Anne of Austria was beginning to lose patience, when 
the news of the victory of Lens restored courage to the court. The grave 
assemblage, on the 26th of August, was issuing from Notre Dame, where a 
Tc Deum had just been sung, when Councillor Broussel and President Blanc- 
mesnil were arrested in their houses and taken, the one to St. Germain and 
the other to Vincennes. 

The arrest of Broussel, an old man in high esteem, very keen in his oppo- 
sition to the court, was like fire to flax. 

Thousands of persons rushed to the Palais-Royal, where the court then 
resided, shouting out, ^^ Liberie et Broussel ! '' Barricades were erected in the 
principal streets ; the authority of the chancellor Seguier was set at naught, 
and the president of the parliament himself, Mathieu Mole, saw himself 
obliged to comply with the wishes of the people. They forced him to go to 
the queen at the head of the assembly, and, under penalty of death, to bring 
back either Broussel or the cardinal. He succeeded in obtaining the liberty 
of the captives, and the queen, frightened out of her obstinacy, hastened to 
confirm the resolutions of the Chambre de Saint Louis by a decree dated 
October 24th, 1648. 

The court, however, had yielded only with the firm resolution of retract- 
ing its concession as soon as a fit opportunity should occur. The king was 
removed from Paris and, supported by Conde, the queen-dowager engaged 
against the parliament the war to which the name of La Fronde has been 
given by way of contempt ; the rebelhon of the parliamentarians being com- 
pared to that of unruly children who would persist in fighting with slings 
notwithstanding the prohibition of the police. 

The chief results of this war, at least in its commencement, were songs, 



152 FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. [1649 

epigrams, lampoons, and now and then a few insignificant skirmishes. The 
twenty councillors of Richelieu's creation, who supplied fifteen thousand livres 
toward the expenses of the war, in order to ingratiate themselves with their 
colleagues, were nick-named ks qumze-vingts. As for serious battles, there 
were none. Conde had only to present himself with a handful of soldiers ; 
he defeated at Charenton the armies of the Parisians who had marched out 
ao-ainst him covered with ribbons and feathers. An arrangement was made 
at Ruel (April, 1649), but the court returned to Paris only four months after- 
ward. 

The State stroke had succeeded ; Mazarin's skill and prudence once more 
checkmated all the intrigues concocted against him. When the news was 
told to Chavigny, in spite of all his reasons for bearing malice against the 
cardinal, who had driven him from the council and kept him for some time in 
prison, he exclaimed : " That is a great misfortune for the prince and his 
friends ; but the truth must be told ; the cardinal has done quite right ; with- 
out it he would have been ruined." The contest was begun between Mazarin 
and the great Conde, and it was not with the prince that the victory was to 
remain. 

Already hostilities were commencing ; Mazarin had done everything 
for the Frondeurs who remained faithful to him, but the house of Conde 
was rallying all its partisans ; the dukes of Bouillon and La Rochefou- 
cauld had thrown themselves into Bordeaux, which was in revolt against 
the royal authority, represented by the duke of Epernon. The princess 
of Conde and her young son left Chantilly to join them ; Madame de 
Longueville occupied Stenay, a strong place belonging to the prince of 
Conde : she had there found Turenne ; on the other hand, the queen 
had just been through Normandy ; all the towns had opened their gates 
to her. It was just the same in Burgundy ; the princess of Conde's able 
agent, Lenet, could not obtain a declaration from the parliament of Dijon 
in her favor. Bordeaux was the focus of the insurrection ; the people, 
passionately devoted to " the dukes, " as the saying was, were forcing the 
hand of the parliament ; riots were frequent in the town ; the little king, 
with the queen and the cardinal, marched in person upon Bordeaux; 
one of the faubourgs' was attacked, the dukes negotiated and obtained 
a general amnesty, but no mention was made of the princes' release. 
The parliament of Paris took the matter up, and on the 30th of January, 
Anne of Austria sent word to the premier president that she would 
consent to grant the release of the princes, '* provided that the arma- 
ments of Stenay and of M. de Turenne might be discontinued." 

The cardinal saw that he was beaten ; he made up his mind, and 
anticipating the queen's officers, he hurried to Le Havre to release the 
prisoners himself ; he entered the castle alone, the governor having refused 
entrance to the guards who attended him. 

The cardinal had slowly taken the road to exile, summoning to him 
his nieces, Mdlles. Mancini and Martinozzi, whom he had, a short time 



i657] FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. 153 

since, sent for to court. He went from Normandy into Picardy, made 
some stay at Doullens, and, impelled by his enemies' hatred, he finally 
crossed the frontier on the 12th of March. The parliamicnt had just 
issued orders for his arrest in any part of France. On the 6th of April, 
he fixed his quarters at Bruhl, a little town belonging to the electorate 
of Cologne, in the same territory which had but lately sheltered the 
last days of Mary de' Medici. 

The Frondeurs, old and new, had gained the day ; but even now 
there was disorder in their camp. Conde had returned to the court 
" like a raging lion, seeking to devour everybody, and, in revenge for 
his imprisonment, to set fire to the four corners of the realm " \_Mcinoircs 
de Montglaf\. He retired southward and prepared for war. He was 
opposed, in the first instance, by Marshal d'Hocquincourt, who was defeated 
at Bleneau, on the banks of the Loire, and afterward by Turenne, who, 
having come to terms with the court, gained at Gien a battle over the 
rebels. Both commanders then marched upon Paris, and a general engage- 
ment took place at the Porte Saint Antoine, where the Frondeiws remained 
victorious, thanks to the audacity of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, daughter 
of Gaston, Duke d'Orleans. Conde marched into the metropolis, and after 
attempting vainly to maintain himself by violence, he took the com- 
mand of the Spanish army, thus disgracing his character by joining the 
enemies of his country. The court then returned to Paris, punished the 
rebels, and in October, 1652, the Fronde may be said to have finished. 

It was now Mazarin's turn to triumph ; his progress back to Paris was 
almost regal. The duke of Orleans retired before long to his castle at 
Blois, where he died in 1660, deserted, toward the end of his life, by 
all the friends he had successively abandoned and betrayed. He was a 
prey to fear, fear of his friends as Avell as of his enemies. The Fronde, 
as we last said, was all over, that of the gentry of the long robe as 
well as that of the gentry of the sword. The parliament of Paris was 
once more falling in the State to the rank which had been assigned to 
it by Richelieu, and from which it had wanted to emerge by a supreme 
effort. 

From 1653 to 1657 Turenne, seconded by Marshal la Ferte and 
sometimes by Cardinal Mazarin in person, constantly kept the Spaniards 
and the prince of Conde in check, recovering the places but lately taken 
from France, and relieving the besieged towns ; without ever engaging 
in pitched battles, he almost always had the advantage. At last the 
victory he gained at the Downs was productive of the greatest results ; 
Dunkerque surrendered immediately, and was ceded to England conformably 
to an agreement made between Mazarin and Cromwell. For a long time 
past the object of the cardinal's labors had been to terminate the war 
by an alliance with Spain. The infanta, Maria Theresa, was no longer 
heiress to the crown, for King Philip at last had a son ; Spain was 
exhausted by long-continued efforts, and dismayed by the checks received 



154 FRANCE.— RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN. [1658 

in the campaign of 1658 ; the alliance of the Rhine, recently concluded 
at Frankfurt between the two leagues, Catholic and Protestant, confirmed 
immutably the advantages which the treaty of Westphalia had secured 
to France. The electors had just raised to the head of the empire 
young Leopold I., on the death of his father Ferdinand III., and they 
proposed their mediation between France and Spain. While King Philip 
IV. was still hesitating, Mazarin took a step in another direction ; the 
king set out for Lyons, accompanied by his mother and his minister, 
to go and see Princess Margaret of Savoy, who had been proposed to 
him a long time ago as his wife. He was pleased with her, and negotia- 
tions were already pretty far advanced, to the great displeasure of the 
queen-mother, when the cardinal, on the 29th of November, 1659, in the 
evening entered Anne of Austria's room. " He found her pensive and 
melancholy, but he was all smiles. 'Good news, madame,' said he. 'Ah!' 
cried the queen, ' is it to be peace?' 'More than that, madame; I bring 
your Majesty both peace and the infanta. ' " The Spaniards had become 
uneasy ; and Don Antonio de Pimental had arrived at Lyons at the same 
time with the court of Savoy, bearing a letter from Philip IV. for the 
queen his sister. 

The year had not yet rolled away, and the duchess of Savoy had 
already lost every atom of illusion. Since the 13th of August, Cardinal 
Mazarin had been officially negotiating with Don Louis de Haro, 
representing Philip IV. The ministers, had held a meeting in the middle 
of the Bidassoa, on the Island of Pheasants, where a pavilion had been 
erected on the boundary-line between the two States. On the 7th of 
November, the peace of the Pyrenees was signed at last ; it put an end to 
a war which had continued for twenty-three years, often internecine, always 
burdensome, and which had ruined the finances of the two countries. 
France was the , gainer of Artois and Roussillon, and of several places in 
Flanders, Hainault and Luxembourg ; and the peace of Westphalia was 
recognized by Spain, to whom France restored all that she held in Catalonia 
and Franche-Comte. Philip IV. had refused to include Portugal in the 
treaty. The infanta received as dowry five hundred thousand gold crowns, 
and renounced all her rights to the throne of Spain ; the prince of Conde was 
taken back to favor by the king, and declared that he would fain redeem 
with his blood all the hostilities he had committed in and out of France. 
The king restored him to all his honors and dignities, gave him the govern- 
ment of Burgundy, and bestowed on his son, the duke of Enghien, the 
office of grand master of France. The honor of the king of Spain was 
saved ; he did not abandon his allies, and he made a great match for his 
daughter. But the eyes of Europe were not blinded ; it was France that 
triumphed ; the policy of Cardinal Richelieu and of Cardinal Mazarin was 
everywhere successful. The work of Henry IV. was completed ; the house 
of Austria was humiliated and vanquished in both its branches ; the man 



1 659] 



FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. 



155 



who had concluded the peace of Westphalia and the peace of the Pyrenees 
had a right to say, " I ann. more French in heart than in speech." 

Like Cardinal Richelieu, Mazarin succumbed at the very pinnacle of 
his glory and power; he died of gout in the stomach, March 9th, 1661. 



XL 



LOUIS IIl-HIS FOIEM POLICY, SUCCESSES ANU 




jS'CARCELY was the minister dead, when Louis XIV. sent 
to summon his council: Chancellor Seguier, Superin- 
tendent Fouquet and secretaries of State Le Tellier, De 
Lionne, Brienne, Duplessis-Guenegaud, and La Vrilliere. 
^ Then, addressing the chancellor : " Sir," said he, " I have 
had you assembled together with my ministers and my 
secretaries of State to tell you that until now I have been 
well pleased to leave my affairs to be governed by the late 
cardinal : it is time that I should govern them myself ; you will 
aid me with your counsels when I ask for them. Beyond the 
general business of the seal, in which I do not intend to make 
any alteration, I beg and command you, Mr. Chancellor, to put 
the seal of authority to nothing without my orders, and without 
having spoken to me thereof, unless a secretary of State shall 

bring them to you on my behalf And for you, gentle- 

m.en," addressing the secretaries of State, " I warn you not to 
sign anything, even a safety-warrant or passport, without my 
command, to report every day to me personally, and to favor nobody in your 
monthly rolls. Mr. Superintendent, I have explained to you my intentions ; 
I beg that you will employ the services of M. Colbert, whom the late cardinal 
recommended to me." The king's councillors were men of experience ; and 
they all recognized the master's tone. It was Louis XIV. 's misfortune to be 
king for seventy-two years, and to reign fifty-six years as sovereign master. 

Superintendent Fouquet counted to increase his influence and probably 
his power with the king. Fouquet, who was born in 161 5, and had been 
superintendent of finance in conjunction with Servien since 1655, had been in 
sole possession of that office since the death of his colleague in 1659. He 
had faithfully served Cardinal Mazarin through the troubles of the Fronde. 
The latter had kept him in power in spite of numerous accusations of 
malversation and extravagance. 

At the time we are now speaking of, the tide had not yet set in against 



156 FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. [1661 

the surintendant ; but clouds were beginning to gather on the horizon, and it 
became evident that a tremendous catastrophe was at hand. The magnificent 
fete given to the king at Vaux by Fouquet was the immediate occasion of his 
diso-race. A few weeks after (September, 1661) he was arrested, sent to the 
Bastile and tried on a double charge of dilapidations and of a plot formed 
against the safety of the State. The first ground of accusation was too true ; 
the second has never been proved. After a trial which lasted three years, 
nine judges voted for capital punishment and thirteen for banishment. The 
kino- passed a sentence of prison for life. Fouquet was taken to Pignerol, 
and all his family removed from Paris. He died piously in his prison, in 1680, 
a year before his venerable mother Marie Maupeou, who was so deeply 
concerned about her son's soul at the very pinnacle of greatness that she 
threw herself upon her knees on hearing of his arrest and exclaimed, " I 
thank Thee, O God ; I have always prayed for his salvation, and here is the 
way to it ! " 

Foreign affairs were in no worse hands than the administration of finance 
and of war. M. de Lionne was an able diplomatist, broken in for a long 
time past to important affairs, shrewd and sensible, more celebrated among 
his contemporaries than in history, always fahing into the second rank, behind 
Mazarin or Louis XIV., "who have appropriated his fame," says M. Mignet. 
The negotiations conducted by M. de Lionne were of a delicate nature. 
Louis XIV. had never renounced the rights of the queen to the succession in 
Spain ; King Philip IV. had not paid his daughter's dowry, he said ; the 
French ambassador at Madrid, the archbishop of Embrun, was secretly 
negotiating to obtain a revocation of Maria Theresa's renunciation, or at the 
very least a recognition of the right of devolution over the Catholic Low 
Countries. This strange custom of Hainault secured to the children of the 
first marriage succession to the paternal property to the exclusion of the off- 
spring of the second marriage. Louis XIV. claimed the application of it to 
the advantage of the queen his wife, daughter of Elizabeth of France. 

In this view and with these prospects, he needed the alliance of the 
Hollanders, and had remained faithful to the policy of Henry IV. and 
Richelieu Avhen Philip IV. died on the 17th of September, 1665. Almost at 
the same time the dissension between England and Holland, after a period of 
tacit hostility, broke out into action. The United Provinces claimed the aid 
of France. Louis XIV. took the field in the month of May, 1667. The 
Spaniards were unprepared. Audenarde was taken in two days ; and the 
king laid siege to Lille. Vauban, already celebrated as an engineer, traced 
out the lines of circumvallation ; the burgesses forced the garrison to 
capitulate ; and Louis XIV. entered the town on the 27th of August, after 
ten days' open trenches. This first campaign had been nothing but playing at 
war, almost entirely without danger or bloodshed ; it had, nevertheless, been 
suf^cient to alarm Europe. Scarcely had peace been concluded at Breda, 
when, on the 23d of January, 1668, the celebrated treaty of the Triple 
Alliance was signed at the Hague between England, Holland and Sweden. 



1672] FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. 157 

At bottom, the Triple Alliance was resolved to protect helpless Spain against 
France ; a secret article bound the three allies to take up arms to restrain 
Louis XIV., and to bring him back, if possible, to the peace of the Pyrenees. 
At the same moment, Portugal was making peace with Spain, who recognized 
her independence. 

The king refused the long armistice demanded of him : " I will grant it 
up to the 31st of March," he had said, "being unwilling to miss the first 
opportunity of taking the field." The marquis of Castel-Rodrigo made 
merry over this proposal : " I am content," said he, " with the suspension of 
arms that winter imposes upon the king of France." The governor of the 
Low Countries made a mistake : in the midst of winter, after having 
concentrated from all parts of France ninety thousand men at Dijon, the king 
threw himself upon the Spanish possessions in Franche-Comte, carried 
Besangon in two days, Dole in four, and the whole province in three weeks. 
Louis XIV., satisfied with the brilliant results of his expedition and not 
wishing to compromise it, signed the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (May 2d). 
According to the terms of that agreement, Spain abandoned to France all her 
conquests in the North, together with the towns of Bergues and Furnes on 
the sea-coast ; France restored Franche-Comte, but after having destroyed the 
fortifications which protected it, and reduced it to a defenseless state. By so 
doing, Louis XIV. was further enabled to gain the time he required for the 
preparation of the campaign which he meditated against Holland. 

In the mean while Sweden had joined the side of France ; through the 
mediation of Henrietta of England, duchess of Orleans, and sister of Charles 
II., this monarch had taken the same resolution ; and finally the league was 
strengthened by the accession of the emperor and of the princes of the 
confederation of the Rhine (1672). 

At length, when everything was ready, Louis XIV., at the head of one 
hundred thousand men, crossed the Rhine without obstacle, marching straight 
into the very heart of Holland. Rheinberg, Wesel, Burick, and Orsoy, 
attacked at once, did not hold out four days. On the 12th of June the king 
and the prince of Conde appeared unexpectedly on the right bank of the 
intermediary branch of the Rhine, between the Wahal and the Yssel. The 
Hollanders were expecting the enemy at the ford of the Yssel, being more 
easy to pass ; they were taken by surprise ; the king's cuirassier regiment 
dashed into the river and crossed it partly by fording and partly by swim- 
ming ; the resistance was brief. Meanwhile the duke of Longueville was 
killed and the prince of Conde was wounded for the first time in his life. " I 
was present at the passage, which was bold, vigorous, full of brilliancy and 
glorious for the nation," writes Louis XIV. Arnheim and Deventer had just 
surrendered to Turenne and Luxembourg ; Duisbourg resisted the king for a 
few days ; Monsieur was besieging Zutphen. John van Witt was for 
evacuating the Hague and removing to Amsterdam the center of government 
and resistance ; the prince of Orange had just abandoned the province of 
Utrecht, which was immediately occupied by the French; the defensive 



'158 FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. [1673 

efforts were concentrated upon the province of Holland ; already Naarden, 
three leagues from Amsterdam, was in the king's hands. A deputation from 
the States was sent on the 22d of June to the king's head-quarters to demand 
peace. Louis XIV. had just entered Utrecht, which, finding itself abandoned, 
opened its gates to him. On the same day, John van Witt received in a 
street of the Hague four stabs with a dagger from the hand of an assassin, 
while the city of Amsterdam, but lately resolved to surrender and prepared 
to send its magistrates as delegates to Louis XIV., suddenly decided upon 
resistance to the bitter end. 

The States-general decided to " reject the hard and intolerable conditions 
proposed by their lordships the kings of France and Great Britain, and to 
defend this State and its inhabitants with all their might." The province of 
Holland in its entirety followed the example of Amsterdam ; the dikes were 
everywhere broken down, at the same time that the troops of the electors of 
Brandenburg and Saxony were advancing to the aid of the United Provinces, 
and that the emperor was signing with those two princes a defensive alliance 
for the maintenance of the treaties of Westphalia, the Pyrenees and Aix-la- 
Chapelle. The murder of the brothers Van Witt was an act of wanton cruelty 
and of brutal ingratitude ; the instinct of the people of Holland, however, 
saw clearly into the situation. John van Witt would have failed in the 
struggle against France ; William of Orange, prince, politician and soldier, 
saved his country and Europe from the yoke of Louis XIV. 

Louis XIV. saw the danger. "So many enemies," says he in his 
M^moires, " obliged me to take care of myself, and think what I must do to 
maintain the reputation of my arms, the advantage of my dominions and my 
personal glory." It was in Franche-Comte that Louis XIV. went to seek these 
advantages. The whole province was reduced to submission in the month of 
June, 1674. Turenne had kept the Rhine against the Imperialists ; the 
marshal alone escaped the tyranny of the king and Louvois, and presumed to 
conduct the campaign in his own way. Conde had gained on the nth of 
August the bloody victory of Seneffe over the prince of Orange and the 
allied generals. Advantages remained balanced in Flanders ; the result of the 
campaign depended on Turenne, who commanded on the Rhine. On the 
1 6th of June, he engaged in battle at Sinzheim with the duke of Lorraine, 
who was coming up with the advance guard. He subsequently entered the 
palatinate, quartering his troops upon it, while the superintendents sent by 
Louvois were burning and plundering the country, crushed as it was under 
war-contributions. The king and Louvois were disquieted by the movement 
of the enemy's troops, and wanted to get Turenne back into Lorraine. On 
the 20th of September, the burgesses of the free city of Strasburg delivered 
up the bridge over the Rhine to the Imperialists who were in the heart of 
Alsace. The victory of Ensheim, the fights of Miilhausen and Turckheim, 
sufficed to drive them back; but it was only on the 22d of January, 1675, 
that Turenne was at last enabled to leave Alsace reconquered. 

The coalition was proceeding slowly ; the prince of Orange was ill ; the 



I 



16/7] FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. 159 

king made himself master of the citadel of Liege and some small places. 
Limburg surrendered to the prince of Cond6 without the allies having been 
able to relieve it. In June, 1675, Turenne returned to his army; he invaded 
■once more the palatinate, and was opposed by Montecuculli, a general who, 
ten years before, had defeated the Turks at the battle of Saint-Gothard, and 
who was considered a consummate tactician. For six weeks the two 
commanders observed and followed one another, and their reputation was 
much increased by the proof they thus give of strategic skill. At last, they 
were on the point of fighting, near the village of Sassbach, on a spot which 
Turenne had selected, and where he made sure of being victorious, when the 
marshal, while observing the position of a battery, was killed by a cannon- 
ball, which carried off likewise the arm of Saint-Hilaire, lieutenant-general of 
the artillery (July 27th, 1675). His death was, for France, a public calamity. 

Europe demanded a general peace ; England and Holland desired it 
passionately. " I am as anxious as you for an end to be put to the war," said 
the prince of Orange to the deputies from the estates, " provided that I get 
•out of it with honor." He refused obstinately to separate from his allies. 
William had just married (November 15th, 1677) the Princess Mary, eldest 
daughter of the duke of York and Anne Hyde. An alliance offensive and 
■defensive between England and Holland was the price of this union, which 
struck Louis XIV. an unexpected blow. He had lately made a proposal to 
the prince of Orange to marry one of his natural daughters. " The first 
notice I had of the marriage," wrote the king, " was through the bonfires 
lighted in London." " The loss of a decisive battle could not have scared 
the king of France more," said the English ambassador, Lord Montagu. For 
more than a year past negotiations had been going on at Nimeguen ; Louis 
XIV. resolved to deal one more great blow. 

The campaign of 1676 had been insignificant, save at sea. John Bart, a 
corsair of Dunkerque, scoured the seas and made foreign commerce tremble ; 
he took ships by boarding, and killed with his own hands the Dutch captain 
-of the Neptune, who offered resistance. Messina, in revolt against the 
Spaniards, had given herself up to France ; the duke of Vivonne, brother of 
Madame de Montespan, who had been sent thither as governor, had extended 
his conquests ; Duquesne, quite young still, had triumphantly maintained 
the glory of France against the great Ruyter, who had been mortally 
-wounded off Catana on the 21st of April. But already the possession of 
Sicily was becoming precarious, and these distant successes had paled before 
the brilliant campaign of 1677; the capture of Valenciennes, Cambrai, and 
"St. Omer, the defense of Lorraine, the victory of Cassel gained over the 
prince of Orange, had confirmed the king in his intentions. Ghent was 
invested by the French on the ist of March and capitulated on the nth; 
Ypres in its turn succumbed on the 25th after a vigorous resistance. Louis 
XIV. sent his ultimatum to Nimeguen. 

On the loth of August, in the evening, the special peace between 
Holland and France was signed after twenty-four hours' conference. The 



i6o FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. [i68a 

prince of Orange had concentrated all his forces near Mons, confronting^ 
Marshal Luxembourg, who occupied the plateau of Casteau ; he had no 
official news as yet from Nimeguen, and, on the 14th, he began the 
engagement outside the abbey of St. Denis. The affair was a very murderous 
one and remained indecisive ; it did more honor to the military skill of the 
prince of Orange than to his loyalty. Holland had not lost an inch of her 
territory during this war, so long, so desperate, and notoriously undertaken 
in order to destroy her ; she had spent much money, she had lost many men, 
she had shaken the confidence of her allies by treating alone and being the 
first to treat, but she had furnished a chief to the European coalition, and. 
she had shown an example of indomitable resistance ; the States-general and 
the prince of Orange alone, besides Louis XIV., came the greater out of the 
struggle. The king of England had lost all consideration both at home and 
abroad, and Spain paid all the expenses of the war. 

Peace was concluded on the 17th of September, thanks to the energetic 
intervention of the Hollanders. 

It still required a successful campaign under Marshal Crequi to bring 
the emperor and the German princes over to peace ; exchanges of territory 
and indemnities re-established the treaty of Westphalia on all essential 
points. The duke of Lorraine refused the conditions on which the king pro- 
posed to restore to him his duchy ; so Louis XIV. kept Lorraine. 

The king of France was at the pinnacle of his greatness and power^ 
" Singly against all," as Louvois said, he had maintained the struggle against 
Europe, and he came out of it victorious ; everywhere, with good reason, was 
displayed his proud device. Nee plitrihus inipar. The prince of Orange 
regarded the peace of Nimeguen as a truce, and a truce fraught with danger 
to Europe. For that reason did he soon seek to form alliances in order to 
secure the repose of the world against the insatiable ambition of King Louis 
XIV. While all the contending parties disbanded their troops, Louis XIV.- 
alone took advantage of the situation for the purpose of increasing his 
power by means which were very little short of actual warfare. By virtue of 
the last arrangements he had obtained the surrender of a certain number of 
towns and districts together with their dependencies. In order to ascertain, 
what these dependencies were, he established at Tournay, at Metz, at Brisach. 
and at Besangon special courts, known as chambres de reunion, because their 
business was to reunite to France certain territories alleged to have been 
dismembered from the cities of Flanders, Alsace, Trois^vech^s, and Franche- 
Comt^. Some German princes, the elector palatine, and the king of Spain 
were obliged to appear by deputy and make their respective titles good;; 
and sentences supported by force gave to Louis XIV. twenty important 
military positions which Vauban fortified, thus making the strongest barrier 
of the kingdom on the Rhenish frontier (168 1). In Italy, Louis XI V» 
purchased Casal in the Montferrate from the duke of Mantua, in order tO' 
command the north of the peninsula and Piedmont, which he was already in 
a certain sense master of by the possession of Pignerol. 



1689] FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. 161 

He was, however, himself about to deal his own king*dom a blow more 
fatal than all those of foreign wars and of the European coalition. He had 
"been carrying matters with a very high hand in other quarters. The strong- 
hold of the Algerian pirates was twice bombarded by Duquesne (1683) ; the 
republic of Genoa, which had supplied them with arms and ships, found itself 
■compelled to make amende Jionorablc in the person of the doge, who, contrary 
to the laws of the State, came to Versailles (1685). Pope Innocent XI. 
himself incurred the resentment of the king for attempting to abolish the 
right of asylum which the French ambassadors had till then enjoyed in Rome 
(1687). The glory of Louis XIV. seemed to extend to the remotest limits of 
the known world, and the king of Siam sent to Versailles an embassy which 
created, at the time, the greatest sensation. He set at naught all the rights 
consecrated by edicts, and the long patience of those Protestants whom 
Mazarin called *' the faithful flock ; " in vain had persecution been tried for 
.several years past ; tyranny interfered, and the edict of Nantes was revoked 
on the 13th of October, 1685. Some years later, the reformers, by hundreds 
of thousands, carried into foreign lands their industries, their wealth and their 
bitter resentments. Protestant Europe, indignant, opened her doors to these 
martyrs to conscience, living witnesses of the injustice and arbitrary power of 
Louis XIV. All the princes felt themselves at the same time insulted and 
threatened in respect of their faith as well as of their puissance. In the early 
months of 1686, the league of Augsburg united all the German princes, 
Holland and Sweden ; Spain and the duke of Savoy were not slow to join it. 
In 1687, the diet of Ratisbonne refused to convert the twenty years' truce 
into a definitive peace. By his haughty pretensions the king gave to the 
coalition the support of Pope Innocent XI. ; Louis XIV. was once more 
single-handed against all, when he invaded the electorate of Cologne in the 
month of August, 1686, Philipsburg, lost by France in 1676, was recovered 
on the 29th of October ; at the end of the campaign, the king's armies were 
masters of the palatinate. In the month of Januai-y, 1689, war was officially 
declared against Holland, the emperor and the empire. The command-in- 
chief of the French forces was entrusted to the dauphin, then twenty-six 
years of age. 

The dauphin was already tasting the pleasures of conquest, and the 
coalition had not stirred. They were awaiting their chief ; William of Orange 
was fighting for them in the very act of taking possession of the kingdom of 
England. (See History of England.) On the Rhine, the dauphin, at the 
head of one hundred thousand men, with the assistance of Marshal de Duras, 
took Philipsburg, Worms, Manheim, and by the order of Louvois the 
palatinate was once more subjected to all the horrors of wholesale destruction 
hy sword and fire. This piece of unwarrantable atrocity is said to have been 
the cause of Louvois's disgrace, who died shortly afterward. 

In Italy Catinat kept his ground against Victor-Amadeus, duke of Savoy, 
and against prjnce Eugene, who, in consequence of an act of injustice on the 
part of Louis XIV., had joined the enemy. The French general defeated the 
II 



i62 FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. [1690- 

allies at Staffarde, and three years afterward at Marsaglia ; but compelled as- 
he was to see his foot^soldiers withdrawn from his command for the purpose: 
of strengthening other divisions of the French army he was himself obliged, 
merely to keep the defensive. 

The most brilliant episodes of the war took place in the Netherlands- 
Luxembourg, whose military talents and whose energy have often caused him 
to be compared with Conde, defeated the prince of Waldeck at Fleurus(i69o),, 
then took possession of Mons under the eyes of William III., who had come: 
from Ireland on purpose to relieve the town, and finally made himself master 
of Namur during the following campaign (1692). The battle of Steinkirk was. 
an act of skill which reflected the greatest credit upon Marshal Luxembourg.. 
Exhausted by the fatigues of war and the pleasures of the court, he died on. 
the 4th of January, 1695, at sixty-seven years of age. 

By detaching the duke of Savoy from the coalition, Louis XIV. struck a. 
fatal blow at the great alliance : the campaign of 1696 in Germany and in. 
Flanders had resolved itself into mere observations and insignificant engage- 
ments ; Holland and England were exhausted, and their commerce was- 
ruined ; in vain did parliament vote fresh and enormous supplies. 

There was no less cruel want in France. " I calculate that in these latter 
days more than a -tenth part of the people," said Vauban, " are reduced to- 
beggary, and in fact beg." Sweden had for a long time been proffering media- 
tion ; conferences began on the 9th of May, 1697, at Nieuburg, a castle belong- 
ing to William III., near the village of Ryswick. Three great halls opened 
one into another ; the French and the plenipotentiaries of the coalition of 
princes occupied the two wings, the mediators sat in the center. Before 
arriving at Ryswick, the most important points of the treaty between France 
and William III. were already settled. 

On the 27th of July a preliminary deed was signed between Marshal 
Boufflers and Bentinck, earl of Portland, the intimate friend of King William p 
the latter left the army and retired to his castle of Loo ; there it was that he- 
heard of the capture of Barcelona by the duke of Vendome ; Spain, which had 
hitherto refused to take part in the negotiations, lost all courage and loudly 
demanded peace, but France withdrew her concessions on the subject of 
Strasburg, and proposed to give as equivalent Friburg in Brisgau and Brisach. 
William III. did not hesitate. Heinsius signed the peace in the name of the 
States-general on the 20th of September at midnight ; the English and Span- 
ish plenipotentiaries did the same ; the emperor and the empire were alone in 
still holding out : the Emperor Leopold made pretensions to regulate in 
advance the Spanish succession, and the Protestant princes refused to accept 
the maintenance of the Catholic worship in all the places in which Louis XIV.. 
had restored it. 

Here again the will of William III. prevailed over the irresolution of his- 
allies. For the first time since Cardinal Richelieu, France moved back her 
frontiers by the signature of a treaty. She had gained the important place 
of Strasburg, but she lost nearly all she had won by the treaty of Nimeguen 



1704] FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. 163 

in the Low Countries and in Germany ; she kept Franche-Comt6, but she gave 
up Lorraine. Louis XIV. had wanted to aggrandize himself at any price and 
at any risk ; he was now obliged to precipitately break up the grand alliance, 
for King Charles II. was slowly dying at Madrid, and the Spanish succession 
was about to open. 

The competitors for the succession were numerous ; the king of France 
and the emperor claimed their rights in the name of their mothers and wives, 
daughters of Philip III. and Philip IV. ; the elector of Bavaria put up the 
claims of his son by right of his mother, Mary Antoinette of Austria, daughter 
of the emperor ; for a short time Charles II. had adopted this young prince ; 
the child died suddenly at Madrid in 1699. The persons most interested in 
the succession had not thought proper either to obtain the king's consent or 
to wait for his demise before dividing his possessions between themselves ; 
they had even made a partition twice, and had satisfied none of the claimants, 
Charles was informed of this unwarrantable arrangement, and under the 
impressions of disgust which it excited in him, he named as his successor 
Philip, Duke d'Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. X 

To triumph over such formidable opponents Louis XIV. would have 
required the illustrious generals of the preceding generation, but they were 
either dead or worn out, and the heavy atmosphere of Versailles produced 
none that could continue their work. Like a soil which has given too luxuri- 
ant a crop, France was becoming exhausted, and the king was on the point of 
seeing soldiers failing just as much as generals and cabinet ministers. The 
inefficient Chamillard, the creature of Madame de Maintenon, gave way under 
the double weight of the treasury and the war administration, which Colbert 
and Louvois had divided between themselves. Louis XIV. thought he would 
counteract Chamillard's weakness by directing him, and never indeed did he 
show more activity. But here, too, obstacles of another kind arrested him. 
He had no experience of either men or things; he hampered his generals 
with directions which they were to observe punctually and which often brought 
about the worst results. And yet some of the commanders whom France 
had still, Villars, Catinat, Boufflers, Vendome, deserved more confidence and 
greater liberty of action. It is true that men like Villeroi, Marsin, Tallard, 
La Feuillade, required advice and the assistance of trustworthy guides, but 
the fact of keeping them in leading strings did not prevent them from inflict- 
ing irreparable disasters upon the French arms. 

The campaigns of 1702 and 1703 had shown Marlborough to be a prudent 
and bold soldier, fertile in resources and novel conceptions ; and those had 
earned him the thanks of parliament and the title of duke. The campaign of 
1704 established his glory upon the misfortunes of France. Marshals Tallard 
and Marsin were commanding in Germany together with the elector of Bava- 
ria; the emperor, threatened with a fresh insurrection in Hungary, recalled 
Prince Eugene from Italy ; Marlborough effected a junction with him by a 
rapid march, which Marshal Villeroi would fain have hindered, but to no 
purpose; on the 13th of August, 1704, the hostile armies met between Blen- 



i64 FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. [1704 

heim and Hochstett, near the Danube ; the forces were about equal, but on 
the French side the counsels were divided, the various corps acted indepen- 
dently. Tallard sustained single-handed the attack of the English and the 
Dutch commanded by Marlborough ; he was made prisoner, his son was killed 
at his side ; the cavalry, having lost their leader and being pressed by the 
enemy, took to flight in the direction of the Danube; many officers and 
soldiers perished in the river ; the slaughter was awful. Marsin and the 
elector, who had repulsed five successive charges of Prince Eugene, succeeded 
in effecting their retreat ; but the electorates of Bavaria and Cologne were 
lost. Landau was recovered by the allies after a siege of two months, the 
French army recrossed the Rhine, Alsace was uncovered and Germany evac- 
uated. 

The king's personal attachment to Marshal Villeroi blinded him as to his 
military talents. Beaten in Italy by Prince Eugene, Villeroi, as presumptuous 
as he was incapable, hoped to retrieve himself against Marlborough. There 
had been eight hours' fighting at Hochstett, inflicting much damage upon the 
enemy ; at Ramilies, the Bavarians took to their heels at the end of an hour ; 
the French, who felt that they were badly commanded, followed their exam- 
ple ; the rout was terrible and the disorder inexpressible. Villeroi kept 
recoiling before the enemy, Marlborough kept advancing; two-thirds of 
Belgium and sixteen strong places were lost, when Louis XIV. sent Chamil- 
lard into the Low Countries ; it was no longer the time when Louvois made 
armies spring from the very soil, and when Vauban prepared the defense of 
Dunkerque. The king recalled Villeroi, showing him to the last unwavering 
kindness. " There is no more luck at our age, marshal," was all he said to 
Villeroi on his arrival at Versailles. The king summoned Vendome, to place 
him at the head of the army of Flanders, " in hopes of restoring to it the spirit 
of vigor and audacity natural to the French nation," as he himself says. For 
two years past, amid a great deal of ill-success, Vendome had managed to 
keep in check Victor Amadeo and Prince Eugene, in spite of the embarrass- 
ment caused him by his brother, the grand prior, the duke of La Feuillade, 
Chamillard's son-in-law, and the orders which reached him directly from the 
king r he had gained during his two campaigns the name of taker of towns, 
and had just beaten the Austrians in the battle of Cascinato. Prince Eugen-e 
had, however, crossed the Adige and the Po when Vendome left Italy; he 
effected his junfction with Victor Amadeo, encountered and defeated the 
French army between the rivers Doria and Stora. Marsin was killed, discour- 
agement spread among the generals and the troops, and the siege of Turin 
was raised ; before the end of the year nearly all the places were lost, and 
Dauphiny was threatened. Victor Amadeo refused to listen to a special peace ; 
in the month of March, 1707, the prince of Vaudemont, governor of Milaness 
for the king of Spain, signed a capitulation at Mantua, and led back to France 
the troops which still remained to him. The Imperialists were masters of 
Naples. Spain no longer had any possessions in Italy. 

Philip V. had been threatened with the loss of Spain as well as of Italy. 



1707] FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. 165 

For two years past Archduke Charles, under the title of Charles III., had, 
-with the support of England and Portugal, been disputing the crown with the 
young king. Philip V. had lost Catalonia and had just failed in his attempt 
to retake Barcelona ; the road to Madrid was cut off, the army was obliged to 
make its way by Roussillon and B6arn to resume the campaign ; the king 
threw himself in person into his capital, whither he was escorted by Marshal 
Berwick, a natural son of James IL, a Frenchman by choice, full of courage 
.and resolution, *' but a great stick of an Englishman, who hadn't a word to 
say," and who was distasteful to the young queen Marie-Louise. Philip V. 
could not remain at Madrid, which was threatened by the enemy ; he removed 
to Burgos ; the English entered the capital and there proclaimed Charles III. 

This was too much; Spain could not let herself submit to have an 
Austrian king imposed upon her by heretics and Portuguese ; the campaign 
of 1707 was signalized in Spain by the victory of Almanza, gained on the 13th 
of April by Marshal Berwick over the Anglo-Portuguese army, and by the 
capture of Lerida, which capitulated on the nth of November into the hands 
of the duke of Orleans. In Germany, Villars drove back the enemy from the 
banks of the Rhine, advanced into Suabiaand ravaged the palatinate, crushing 
the country with requisitions, of which he openly reserved a portion for 
himself. 

The invasion of Provence by Victor Amadeo and Prince Eugene, their 
■check before Toulon and their retreat, precipitated by the rising of the 
peasants, had irritated the allies ; the attempts at negotiation which the king 
had entered upon at the Hague remained without result ; the duke of 
Burgundy took the command of the armies of Flanders with Vendome for his 
second. On the 5th of July, Ghent was surprised ; Vendome had intelligence 
inside the place, the Belgians were weary of their new masters ; Bruges 
opened its gates to the French. Prince Eugene advanced to second Marlbor- 
ough, but he was late in starting ; the troops of the elector of Bavaria 
harassed his march. The English encountered the French army in front of 
Audenarde. The engagement began. Vendome, who commanded the right 
wing, sent word to the duke of Burgundy. The latter hesitated and delayed ; 
the generals about him did not approve of Vendome's movement. He 
fought single-handed, and was beaten. Prince Eugene and the duke of 
Marlborough laid siege to Lille, which was defended by old Marshal 
Boufflers, the bravest and the most respected of all the king's servants. Lille 
was not relieved, and fell on the 25th of October; the citadel held out until 
the 9th of December ; the king heaped rewards on Marshal Boufflers ; at the 
march out from Lille, Prince Eugene had ordered all his army to pay him 
the same honors as to himself. Ghent and Bruges were abandoned to the 
Imperialists. 

The campaign in Spain had not been successful ; the duke of Orleans, 
weary of his powerlessness, and under suspicion at the court of Philip V., had 
given up the command of the troops ; the English admiral, Leake, had taken 
possession of Sardinia, of the island of Minorca and of Port Mahon ; the 



i66 FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. [1707- 

archduke was master of the isles and of the sea. The destitution in France 
was fearful, and the winter so severe that the poor were in want of every- 
thing; riots multiplied in the towns; the king sent his plate to the Mint, and 
put his jewels in pawn ; he likewise took a resolution, which cost him even 
more — he determined to ask for peace. He offered the Hollanders a very- 
extended barrier in the Low Countries and all the facilities they had long 
been asking for their commerce. He accepted the abandonment of Spain to 
the archduke and merely claimed to reserve to his grandson, Naples, Sardinia 
and Sicily. This was what was secured to him by the second treaty of 
partition lately concluded between England, the United Provinces and 
France ; he did not even demand Lorraine. President Rouill6, formerly 
French envoy to Lisbon, arrived disguised in Holland; conferences were 
opened secretly at Bodegraven. 

Led on by his fidelity to the allies, distrustful and suspicious as regarded 
France, burning to avenge the wrongs put upon the republic, Heinsius, in 
concert with Marlborough and Prince Eugene, required conditions so hard 
that the French agent scarcely dared transmit them to Versailles. What was 
demanded was the abdication pure and simple of PhiHp V. ; Holland merely 
promised her good offices to obtain in his favor Naples and Sicily ; England, 
claimed Dunkerque ; Germany wanted Strasburg and the renewal of the 
peace of Westphalia ; Victor Amadeo aspired to recover Nice and Savoy ; to 
the Dutch barrier stipulated for at Ryswick were to be added Lille, Cond6,, 
and Tournay. In vain was the matter discussed article by article ; in their 
short-sighted resentment the allies had overstepped reason. War recom- 
menced on all sides. The king had just consented at last to give Chamillard 
his discharge. " Sire, I shall die over the job," had for a long time been the 
complaint of the minister worn out with fatigue. " Ah ! well, we will die 
together," had been the king's rejoinder. 

France was dying, and Chamillard was by no means a stranger to the 
cause. Louis XIV. put in his place Voysin, former superintendent of 
Hainault, entirely devoted to Madame de Maintenon. He loaded with, 
benefits the minister from whom he was parting, the only one whom he had 
really loved. The troops were destitute of everything. The king was afraid 
of losing his last army ; the dukes of Harcourt and Berwick were covering 
the Rhine and the Alps ; Marlborough and Prince Eugene, who had just 
made themselves masters of Tournay, marched against Villars, whom they 
encountered on the nth of September, 1709, near the hamlet of Malplaquet. 
Marshal Boufflers had just reached the army to serve as a volunteer. Villars. 
had entrenched himself in front of the woods ; his men were so anxious to get 
under fire that they threw away the rations of bread just served out ; the 
allies looked sulkily at the works : " We are going to fight moles again," they 
said. The allies won the victory, but they had lost more than twenty 
thousand men, according to their official account. 

This glorious defeat was followed by a triumph of a more decided 
character. Louis XIV. sent into Spain the Duke de Vendome, who was in 



I7I2] FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. 16/ 

disgrace since the famous campaign of Audenarde. His name alone was 
worth an army. A number of volunteers crowded under his command, and 
Philip v., who as yet had not appeared on any field of battle, placed himself 
at the head of his troops. The Spaniards, roused up at the voice of the king,, 
began against the imperial forces a guerilla warfare which proved fatal tO' 
their invaders ; and, finally, the archduke's troops, headed by Count Stahren- 
berg, were thoroughly routed at Villaviciosa (December 9th, 17 10). The 
victory of Villaviciosa not only saved the crown of Philip V., but also pre- 
vented Louis XIV. from losing Canada. An English expedition was fitted 
out to occupy that colony, but the success of Vendome obliged it to remain 
in observation on the coast of Spain. 

A court intrigue, which ended in the downfall of the Whig administra- 
tion and the disgrace of the duchess of Marlborough, brought matters to a 
crisis. The Tories, called to the direction of the government, tried to- 
establish their credit on peaceful measures. Secret negotiations between 
France and England were begun : after the death of the emperor (April 17th, 
171 1) they became public, a suspension of arms was immediately decided, and 
the preliminaries of peace were signed in London on the 8th of October 
following. This example decided the allies ; a congress assembled at Utrecht 
on the 29th of January, 171 2. The new emperor refused to have anything 
to do with it ; but the forces were now equal, and one campaign proved ta 
the emperor that he could not, single-handed, hope to reduce France. 

The bolts of Heaven were falling one after another upon the royal 
family of France. On the 14th of April, 171 1, Louis XIV. had lost by small- 
pox his son, the grand dauphin, a mediocer and submissive creature, ever the 
most humble subject of the king, at just fifty years of age. His eldest son,, 
the duke of Burgundy, devout, austere and capable, the hope of good men 
and the terror of intriguers, had taken the rank of dauphin, and was seriously 
commencing his apprenticeship in government, when he was carried off on 
the 1 8th of February, 171 2, by spotted ioN^x {roiigeole po rpre'c), six days after 
his wife, the charming Mary Adelaide of Savoy, the idol of the whole courts 
supremely beloved by the king, and by Madame de Maintenon, who had 
brought her up ; their son, the duke of Brittany, four years old, died on the 
8th of March ; a child in the cradle, weakly and ill, the little duke of Anjou 
remained the only shoot of the elder branch of the Bourbons. Dismay seized 
upon all France. Europe in its turn was excited. If the little duke of 
Anjou were to die, the crown of France reverted to Philip V. The Hollan- 
ders and the ambassadors of the emperor Charles VI,, recently crowned at 
Frankfurt, insisted on the necessity of a formal renunciation. In accord with 
the English ministers, Louis XIV. wrote to his grandson : — 

" You will be told what England proposes, that you should renounce your 
birthright, retaining the monarchy of Spain and the Indies, or renounce the 
monarchy of Spain, retaining your rights to the succession in France, and 
receiving in exchange for the crown of Spain the kingdoms of Sicily and 
Naples, the States of the duke of Savoy, Montferrat and the Mantuan, the 



i68 FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. [1712 

said duke of Savoy succeeding you in Spain. . . . If this child were to die, as his 
weakly complexion gives too much reason to suppose, you would enjoy the 
■succession to me following the order of your birth, and I should have the 
consolation of leaving to my people a virtuous king, capable of commanding 
them, and one who, on succeeding me, would unite to the crown States so 
considerable as Naples, Savoy, Piedmont and Montferrat. If gratitude and 
affection toward your subjects are to you pressing reasons for remaining with 
them, I may say that you owe me the same sentiments ; you owe them to 
your own house, to your own country, before Spain. All that I can do for 
you is to leave you once more the choice, the necessity for concluding peace 
becoming every day more urgent." 

The choice of Philip V. was made ; he had already written to his grand- 
father to say that he would renounce all his rights of succession to the 
throne of France rather than give up the crown of Spain. This decision was 
solemnly enregistered by the Cortes. The English required that the dukes of 
Berry and Orleans should likewise make renunciation of their rights to the 
crown of Spain. Negotiations began again, but war began again at the same 
time as the negotiations. 

The king had given Villars the command of the army of Flanders. The 
marshal went to Marly to receive his last orders. " You see my plight, 
marshal," said Louis XIV. " There are few examples of what is my fate — to 
lose in the same week a grandson, a grandson's wife and their son, all of very 
great promise and very tenderly beloved. God is punishing me ; I have well 
■deserved it. But suspend we my griefs at my own domestic woes, and look 
we to what may be done to prevent those of the kingdom. If anything were 
to happen to the army you command. ... I should count upon getting to 
Peronne or St. Quentin, and there massing all the troops I had, making a last 
effort with you, and falling together or saving the kingdom ; I will never 
consent to let the enemy approach my capital " [Memoir es de Villars, t. ii. p. 
362]. 

God was to spare Louis XIV. that crowning disaster reserved for other 
times. On the 25th of May, the king secretly informed his plenipotentiaries 
as well as his generals that the English were proposing to him a suspension 
of hostilities, and he added : " It is no longer a time for flattering the pride 
of the Hollanders, but, while we treat with them in good faith, it must be 
with the dignity that becomes me." That which the king's pride refused to 
the ill-will of the Hollanders he granted to the good will of England. The 
day of the commencement of the armistice Dunkerque was put as guarantee 
into the hands of the English, who recalled their native regiments from the 
army of Prince Eugene ; the king complained that they left him the auxiliary 
troops ; the English ministers proposed to prolong the truce, promising to 
treat separately with France if the allies refused assent to the peace. The 
news received by Louis XIV. gave him assurance of better conditions than 
any one had dared to hope for. 

Villars had not been able to prevent Prince Eugene from becoming 



1714J FRANCE.— LOUIS XIV. 169 

master of Quesnoy on the 3d of July ; the Imperialists were already making^ 
preparations to invade France. The marshal resolved to relieve Landrecies, 
and, having had bridges thrown over the Scheldt, he crossed the river 
between Bouchain and Denain on the 23d of July, 1712; the latter little 
place was defended by the duke of Albemarle, son of General Monk, with 
seventeen battalions of auxiliary troops in the pay of the allies. The 
Imperialist lines, stretching over a space of between twelve and fifteen 
leagues, were too straggling, and the different corps too far separated to be 
within reach of relieving one another. Villars took advantage of this 
mistake ; by a false attack toward Landrecies he deceived the Prince Eugene,, 
and then marching with all speed upon Denain, where was the earl of 
Albemarle, he destroyed that general's camp and cut to pieces seventeen 
battalions (July 24th, 1712). Eugene comes up ; he too is driven back. All 
the posts on the bank of the Scarpe are successively carried, Landrecies is 
relieved, Douai, Marchiennes, Bouchain and Le Quesnoy are taken, and the 
frontiers of France become safe once more. 

The victory of Denain hastened the conclusion of the peace. Three 
treaties were signed: ist, that of Utrecht (April nth, 171 3), between France, 
Spain, Holland, Savoy and Portugal; 2d, that of Rastadt (March 7th, 1714),. 
between France and Charles VI., 3d, that of Baden (June 7th, 1714), between 
France and the empire. The treaty of Rastadt was delayed for one year on 
account of the obstinacy of Charles VI., who persisted in continuing the war,, 
although his allies had come to terpis with Louis XIV. Villars, sent toward 
the Rhenish frontier, where he found himself opposed to Prince Eugene, 
disconcerted the Imperial troops by the rapidity of his movements. He 
retook Landau, scaled at the head of his grenadiers the mountain of Roskhof, 
which protected Friburg, and made himself master of this city. This 
brilliant success constrained at last the emperor to give to his subjects that 
peace with which for so long a time they had ceased to be acquainted, 
France kept Landau and Fort Louis, she restored Spires, Brisach and 
Friburg. The emperor refused to recognize Philip V., but he accepted the 
status quo ; the crown of Spain remained definitively with the house of 
Bourbon ; it had cost men and millions enough ; for an instant the very 
foundations of order in Europe had seemed to be upset ; the old French- 
monarchy had been threatened ; it had recovered of itself and by its own 
resources, sustaining single-handed the struggle, and obtained conditions which 
restored its frontiers to the limits of the peace of Ryswick ; but it was 
exhausted, gasping, at wits' end for men and money ; absolute power had 
obtained from national pride the last possible efforts, but it had played itself 
out in the struggle ; the confidence of the country was shaken ; it had been 
5een what dangers the will of a single man made the nation incur. The habit of 
respect, the memories of past glories, the personal majesty of Louis XIV. still 
kept up about the aged king the deceitful appearances of uncontested power 
and sovereign authority; the long decadence of his great-grandson's reign 
was destined to complete its ruin. 



I/O 



FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. 



[1661 



Louis XIV. had the good fortune to profit by the efforts of his 
predecessors as well as of his own servants : Richelieu and Mazarin, Conde 
and Turenne, Luxembourg, Catinat, Vauban, Villars and Louvois all toiled at 
the same work ; under his reign, France was intoxicated with excess of the 
pride of conquest, but she did not lose all its fruits ; she witnessed the 
conclusion of five peaces, mostly glorious, the last sadly honorable ; all tended 
to consolidate the unity and power of the kingdom ; it is to the treaties of 
the Pyrenees, of Westphalia, of Nimeguen, of Ryswick, and of Utrecht, all 
signed in the name of Louis XIV., that France owed Roussillon, Artois, 
Alsace, Flanders and Franche-Comte. 



xn. 



LOUIS 11? -HOI ADMISTEATM -LITEMTURE -THE 

TY. 




T is King Louis XIV.'s distinction and heavy burden 

in the eyes of history that it is impossible- to tell of 

anything in his reign without constantly recurring to 

himself. He had two ministers of the higher order, 

Colbert and Louvois ; several of good capacity, such as 

Seignelay and Torcy ; others incompetent, like Chamil- 

lard ; he remained as much master of the administrators 

of the first rank as if they had been insignificant clerks ; the 

home government of France, from 1661 to 171 5, is summed up in 

the king's relations with his ministers. 

It was their genius which made the fortunes and the power of 

Louis XIV.'s two great ministers, Colbert and Louvois. On the 

faith of Cardinal Marazin, the king knew the worth of Colbert. 

" I had all possible confidence in him," says he, " because I knew 

that he had a great deal of application, intelligence and probity." 

Rough, reserved, taciturn, indefatigable in work, passionately 

devoted to the cause of order, public welfare and the peaceable 

aggrandisement of France, Colbert, on becoming the comptroller of finance 

in 1661, brought to the service of the State superior views, consummate 

experience and indomitable perseverance. 

The punishment of the tax-collectors {traitants), prosecuted at the same 
time as Superintendent Fouquet the arbitrary redemption of rentes (annuities) 
on the city of Paris or on certain branches of the taxes, did not suffice to 
alleviate the extreme suffering of the people. The talliages, from which the 
nobility and the clergy were nearly everywhere exempt, pressed upon the 
people with the most cruel inequality. Colbert proposed to the king to remit 



1751] FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. 171 

the arrears of that tax, and devoted all his efforts to reducing them, while 
regulating its collection. He was only very partially successful, without, how- 
ever, allowing himself to be repelled by the difficulties presented by 
differences of legislation and customs in the provinces. He died without 
having completed his work ; but the talliages had been reduced by eight 
tnillions of livres within the first two years of his administration. 

Peace was of short duration in the reign of Louis XIV., and often so 
precarious that it did not permit disarmament. At the very period when the 
able minister was trying to make the people feel the importance of the 
■diminution in the talliages, he wrote to the king : " I merely entreat your 
Majesty to permit me to say that in war as well as in peace you have never 
■consulted your finances for the purpose of determining your expenditure, 
which is a thing so extraordinary that assuredly there is no example thereof. 
For the past twenty years during which I have had the honor of serving your 
Majesty, though the receipts have greatly increased, you would find that the 
■expenses have much exceeded the receipts, which might perhaps induce you 
to moderate and retrench such as are excessive." Louis XIV. did not 
^'moderate or retrench his expenses." The expenses of recovering the taxes, 
which had but lately. led to great abuses, were diminished by half. The 
puissance of the provincial governors, already curtailed by Richelieu, suffered 
from fresh attacks under Louis XIV. Everywhere the power passed into the 
hands of the superintendents, themselves subjected in their turn to inspection 
by the masters of requests. Order was restored in all parts of France. 

Colbert knew how to " throw millions about " when it was for endowing 
France with new manufactures and industries. " One of the most important 
works of peace," he used to say, " is the re-establishment of every kind of 
trade in this kingdom and to put it in a position to do without having 
recourse to foreigners for the things necessary for the use and comfort of the 
■subjects." The cloth manufactures were dying out, they received encourage- 
ment ; a Protestant Hollander, Van Robais, attracted over to Abbeville by 
Colbert, there introduced the making of fine cloths ; at Beauvais and in the 
Gobelins establishment at Paris, under the direction of the great painter, 
Lebrun, the French tapestries soon threw into the shade the reputation of 
the tapestries of Flanders ; Venice had to yield up her secrets and her 
workmen for the glass manufactories of St. Gobain and Tourlaville. The 
bad state of the roads " was a dreadful hindrance to traffic ; " Colbert 
ordered them to be everywhere improved. The magnificent canal of 
Languedoc, due to the generous initiative of Riquet, united the ocean to the 
Mediterranean ; the canal of Orleans completed the canal of Briare, com- 
menced by Henry IV. The inland custom-houses, which shackled the trafific 
between province and province, were suppressed at divers points ; many 
provinces demurred to the admission of this innovation, declaring that, to set 
their affairs right, " there was need of nothing but order, order, order." 
Colbert also wanted order, but his views were higher and broader than those 
■of Breton or Gascon merchants ; in spite of his desire to " put the kingdom 



172 FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. [1691 

in a position to do without having recourse to foreigners for things necessary 
for the use and comfort of the French," he had too lofty and too judicious a 
mind to neglect the extension of trade ; like Richelieu, he was for founding 
great trading companies ; he had five, for the East and West Indies, the 
Levant, the North, and Africa ; his efforts were not useless ; at his death, the 
maritime trade of France had developed itself, and French merchants were 
effectually protected at sea by ships of war. In 1692, the royal navy 
numbered a hundred and eighty-six vessels ; a hundred and sixty thousand 
sailors were down on the books ; the works at the ports of Toulon, Brest,, 
and Rochefort, were in full activity ; Louis XIV. was in a position to refuse 
the salute of the flag, which the English had up to that time exacted in the 
Channel from all nations. 

Louis XIV. was the victim of three passions Avhich hampered and in the 
long run destroyed the accord between king and minister: that for war,, 
whetted and indulged by Louvois ; that for kingly and courtly extravagance ; 
and that for building and costly fancies. Colbert urged the king to complete 
the Louvre, plans for which were requested of Bernini, who went to Paris for 
the purpose ; after two years' useless feelers and compliments, the Italian 
returned to Rome, and the work was entrusted to Perrault, whose plan for 
the beautiful colonnade still existing had always pleased Colbert. The 
completion of the castle of St. Germain, the works at Fontainbleau and at 
Chambord, the triumphal arches of St. Denis and St. Martin, the laying out 
of the Tuileries, the construction of the Observatory, and even that of the 
Palais des Invalides, which was Louvois's idea, found the comptroller of the 
finances well disposed if not eager. 

Colbert was mistaken in his fears for Louis XIV.'s. glory ; if the expenses- 
of Versailles surpassed his most gloomy apprehensions, the palace which rose 
upon the site of Louis XIV.'s former hunting box was worthy of the king 
who had made it in his own image and who managed to retain all his court 
around him there ; he died, however, before Versailles was completed ; at 
sixty-four years of age Colbert succumbed to excess of labor and of cares. 
His thoughts were occupied with his soul's salvation. Madame de Maintenoti 
used to accuse him of always thinking about his finances and very little about 
religion. He repeated bitterly, as the dying Cardinal Wolsey had previously 
said in the case of Henry : " If I had done for God what I have done for 
that man, I had been saved twice over ; and now I know not what will 
become of me." He expired on the 6th of September, 1683. 

Louvois remained henceforth alone, without rival and without check. 
The work he had undertaken for the reorganization of the army was pretty 
nearly completed ; he had concentrated in his own hands the whole directioa 
of the military service, the burden and the honor of which were both borne 
by him. He had subjected to the same rules and the same discipline all 
corps and all grades ; the general as well as the colonel obeyed him blindly, 
M. de Turenne alone had managed to escape from the administrative leveL 
Order reigned in the army, and supplies were regular. Louvois received the 



t 



1715] FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. 173 

nickname of great Victualler {Vivricr). The wounded were tended in hospitals 
devoted to their use. He conceived the grand idea of the Hotel des 
Invalides. Never had the officers of the army been under such strict and 
minute supervision ; promotion went by seniority, by " the order on the list," 
as the phrase then was, without any favor for rank or birth ; commanders 
were obliged to attend to their corps. 

Artillery and engineering were developed under the influence of Vauban, 
" the first of his own time and one of the first of all times " in the great art 
of besieging, fortifying and defending places. Louvois had singled out 
Vauban at the sieges of Lille, Tournay and Douai, which he had directed in 
chief under the king's own eye. The honesty and moral worth of Vauban 
equaled his genius ; he was as high-minded as he was modest ; evil reports 
had been spread about concerning the contractors for the fortifications of 
Lille ; Vauban demanded an inquiry : " You are quite right in thinking, my 
lord," he wrote to Louvois, to whom he was united by a sincere and faithful 
friendship, " that, if you do not examine into this affair, you can not do me 
justice, and, if you do it me not, that would be compelling me to seek means of 
doing it myself, and of giving up forever fortification and all its concomitants." 
It was not until eight years after the death of Louvois, in 1699, when Vauban 
had directed fifty-three sieges, constructed the fortifications of thirty-three 
places, and repaired those of three hundred towns, that he was made a marshal, 
an honor that no engineer had yet obtained. 

The leisure of peace was more propitious to Vauban's fame than to his 
favor. Generous and sincere as he was, a patriot more far-sighted than his 
contemporaries, he had the courage to present to the king a memorial 
advising the recall of the fugitive Huguenots and renewal, pure and simple, of 
the edict of Nantes. He had just directed the siege of Brisach and the 
defense of Dunkerque when he published a great economical work entitled 
la Dime Royale. The king was offended ; he gave the marshal a cold reception 
and had the work seized. Vauban received his death-blow from this disgrace : 
the royal edict was dated March 19th, 1707: the great engineer died on the 
30th ; he was not quite seventy-four. The king testified no regret for the loss 
of so illustrious a servant, with whom he had lived on terms of close 
intimacy. Vauban had appeared to impugn his supreme authority ; this was 
one of the crimes that Louis XIV. never forgave. 

On the i6th of July, 1691, death suddenly removed the minister Louvois, 
fallen in royal favor, detested and dreaded in France, universally hated in 
Europe, leaving, however, the king, France and Europe with the feeling that 
a great power had fallen, a great deal of merit disappeared. 

The king felt his loss, but did not regret the minister whose tyranny and 
violence were beginning to be oppressive to him : he felt himself to be more 
than ever master in the presence of the young or inexperienced men towhom 
he henceforth entrusted his affairs. Louvois's son, Barbezieux, had the 
reversion of the war-department ; Pontchartrain, who had been comptroller 



174 FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. [1661 

of finance ever since the retirement of Lepelletier, had been appointed to the 
navy in 1690 at the death of Seignelay. 

Then came the age of mediocrity in the cabinet as well as on the field ; 
Chamillard was the first, the only one of his ministers, whom the king had 
ever loved. The court bore with him because he was easy and good-natured, 
but the affairs of the State were imperiled in his hands; Pontchartrain had 
already had recourse to the most objectionable proceedings in order to obtain 
money; the mental resources of Colbert himself had failed in presence of 
financial embarrassments and increasing estimates. Trade was languishing ; 
the manufactures founded by Colbert were dropping away one after another ; 
the revocation of the edict of Nantes and the emigration of Protestants had 
drained France of the most industrious and most skillful workmen ; many of 
the reformers had carried away a great deal of capital ; the roads, everywhere 
neglected, were becoming impracticable. 

Desmarets in the finance and Voysin in the war-department, both 
superintendents of finance, the former a nephew of Colbert's and initiated 
into business by his uncle, both of them capable and assiduous, succumbed, 
like their predecessors, beneath the weight of the burdens which were over- 
whelming and ruining France. Desmarets succeeded better than could have 
been expected without being able to rehabilitate the finances of the State. 
Pontchartrain had exhausted the resource of creating new ofifices. Desmarets 
had recourse to the bankers ; and the king seconded him by the gracious 
favor with which he received at Versailles the greatest of the collectors 
{traitants), Samuel Bernard. France kept up the contest to the end. When 
the treaty of Utrecht was signed, the fleet was ruined and destroyed, the 
trade diminished by two-thirds, the colonies lost or devastated by the war, 
the destitution in the country so frightful that orders had to be given to sow 
seed in the fields; the exportation of grain was forbidden on pain of death. 
Meanwhile the peasantry were reduced to browse upon the grass in the roads 
and to tear the bark off the trees and eat it. Thirty years had rolled by 
since the death of Colbert, twenty-two since that of Louvois ; everything 
was going to perdition simultaneously ; reverses in war and distress at home 
were uniting to overwhelm the aged king, alone upstanding amid so many 
dead and so much ruin. 

Independently of simple submission to the Catholic Church, there 
were three great tendencies which divided serious minds among them 
during the reign of Louis XIV. ; three noble passions held possession of 
pious souls ; liberty, faith, and love were, respectively, the groundwork 
as well as the banner of Protestantism, Jansenism, and Quietism. It was 
the name of the fundamental and innate liberty of the soul, its personal 
responsibility and its direct relations with God, that the Reformation had 
sprung up and reached growth in France, even more than in Germany 
and in England. M. de St. Cyran, the head and founder of Jansenism, 
abandoned the human soul unreservedly to the supreme will of God ; 
his faith soared triumphant over fiesh and blood, and his disciples, disdaining. 



I7I5] FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. 175 

the joys and the ties of earth, lived only for eternity. Madame Guyon 
and Fenelon, less ardent and less austere, discovered in the tender mysticism 
of piLre love that secret of God's which is sought by all pious souls; 
in the name of divine love, the Ouietists renounced all will of their 
own, just as the Jansenists in the name of faith. 

Louis XIV. on one occasion had solemnly promised that he would 
respect the rights of conscience ; but from the very beginning of his 
personal government he plainly showed that he did not mean to keep 
his word ; and after an interval of twenty years, the series of arbitrary 
measures which he countenanced and even ordered were replaced by open 
and avowed persecution. To begin with the Huguenots ; all the guaran- 
tees stipulated by the edict of Nantes were successively withdrawn, the 
mixed chambers established in the parliaments of Toulouse, Grenoble, 
and Bordeaux were suppressed, and no Protestant could enter any one 
of the liberal professions or practice as physician, lawyer, publisher, printer, 
etc. Roman Catholics were prohibited from embracing Calvinism under 
penalty of hard labor at the hulks for life ; and children of Protestant 
parents were, on the contrary, authorized to abjure their faith as early 
as the age of seven years. By virtue of this declaration, a great number 
of children were torn from the bosom of their family ; and 'Madame de 
Maintenon founded the convent of Saint-Cyr, near Versailles, for the 
reception of young ladies of noble origin, thus converted. Missions were 
multiplied throughout the provinces, consciences were bought accord- 
ing to a certain tariff, and Pellisson, who, like the new favorite, had been 
originally a Protestant, received the direction of a special fund organized 
to pay these shameful abjurations. 

It was pleasantly remarked at court, that the golden doctrine of 
M. Pellisson was much more convincing than that of Monsieur de Meaux. 
The Protestants called his coffers the box of Pandora, while he himself 
compared them to the cruse of the widow of Sarepta. Louvois had 
recourse to means still more persuasive, he sent soldiers to take up their 
quarters in the houses of the Protestants. " Sometimes the poor frightened 
people at once declared themselves converts by general acclamation. The 
people of education signed a profession of faith, while the common 
people only said, * I reunite myself,' or cried out ' Ave Maria,' or made 
the sign of the cross. In some towns, offices of conversion were estab- 
lished, where the proselytes, after having their names registered on a list, 
received a certificate written on the back of a playing card, which was to 
protect them from the persecution of the soldiery. The people of Nismes, 
using on apocalyptic phrase, called this card the mark of the beast ; 
and, indeed, they only announced a profound truth ; for what is a man 
worth who, to preserve what is animal and mortal in him, gives up his 
spiritual being — his soul, the heavenly and immortal part of his nature?" 

At last the fatal blow was struck. The king assembled his council: 
the lists of converts were so long that there could scarcely remain in 



176 FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. [1661 

the kingdom more than a few thousand recalcitrants.. A resolution was 
carried ''unanimously for the suppression of the edict of Nantes. The 
declaration, drawn up by Chancellor Le TeUier and Chateauneuf, was 
signed by the king on the 15th of October, 1685; it was dispatched 
on the 17th to all the superintendents. The edict of pacification, that 
great Vv^ork of the liberal and prudent genius of Henry IV., respected 
and confirmed in its most important particulars by Cardinal Richelieu, 
recognized over and over again by Louis XIV. himself, disappeared at 
a single stroke, carrying with it all hope of liberty, repose and justice 
for filteen hundred thousand subjects of the king. "Our pains," said 
the preamble of the edict, "have had the end we had proposed, seeing 
that the better and the greater part of our subjects of the religion styled 
reformed have embraced the Catholic; the execution of the edict of 
Nantes consequently remaining useless, we have considered that we could 
not do better, for the purpose of effacing entirely the memory of the 
evils which this false religion has caused in our kingdom, than revoke 
entirely the aforesaid edict of Nantes and all that has been done in 
favor of the said religion." 

The edict of October 15th, 1685, supposed the religion styled reformed 
to be already destroyed and abolished. It ordered the demolition of all 
the chapels that remained standing and interdicted any assembly or 
worship: recalcitrant {ppinidtrcs) ministers were ordered to leave the king- 
dom within fifteen days; the schools were closed; all new-born babies 
were to be baptized by the parish-priests; religionists were forbidden 
to leave the kingdom on pain of the galleys for the men and confisca- 
tion of person and property for the women. "The will of the king," 
said Superintendent Marillac at Rouen, "is that there be no more than 
one religion in this kingdom; it is for the glory of God and the well- 
being of the State." Two hours were allowed the reformers of Rouen 
for making their abjuration. 

One clause, at the end of the edict of October 15th, seemed to extenuate 
its effect: "Those of our subjects of the religion styled reformed who 
shall persist in their errors, pending the time when it may please God 
to enlighten them like the rest, shall, be allowed to remain in the 
kingdom, country and lands which obey the king, there to continue their 
trade and enjoy their property without being Hable to be vexed or 
hindered on pretext of prayer or worship of the said religion, of what- 
soever nature they may be." " Never was there illusion more cruel than 
that which this clause caused people," says Benoit in his Histoire de 
VEdit de Nantes: "it was believed that the king meant only to forbid 
special exercises, but that he intended to leave conscience free, since he 
granted this grace to all those who were still reformers, pending the 
time when it should please God to enlighten them. Many gave up the 
measures they had taken for leaving the country with their families, 
many voluntarily returned from the retreats where they had hitherto been 



I/I 5] FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. 177 

fortunate enough to lie hid. The most mistrustful dared not suppose 
that so solemn a promise was only made to be broken on the morrow. 
They were all, nevertheless, mistaken ; and those who were imprudent 
enough to return to their homes were only just in time to receive the 
dragoons there." The pride of Louis XIV. was engaged in the struggle ; 
those of his subjects who refused to sacrifice their religion to him were 
disobedient, rebellious and besotted with silly vanity. 

Even in his court and among his most useful servants the king 
encountered unexpected opposition. Marshal Schomberg with great difii- 
culty obtained authority to leave the kingdom ; Duquesne was refused. 
All ports were closed, all frontiers watched. The great lords gave way, 
one after another; accustomed to enjoy royal favors, attaching to them 
excessive value, living at court, close to Paris, which was spared a great 
deal during the persecution, they, v/ithout much effort, renounced a faith 
which closed to them henceforth the door to all offices and all honors. 
The gentlemen of the provinces were more resolute ; many realized as 
much as they could of their property and went abroad, braving all 
dangers, even that of the galleys in case of arrest. It was impossible 
to estimate precisely the number of emigrations ; it was probably between 
three and four hundred thousand. Almost all trade was stopped in 
Normandy. The little amount of manufacture that was possible rotted 
away on the spot for want of transport to foreign countries, whence 
vessels were no longer found to come. The Norman emigration had 
been very numerous, thanks to the extent of its coasts and to the 
habitual communication between Normandy, England and Holland ; Vauban, 
however, remained very far from the truth when he deplored, in 1688, 
" the desertion of one hundred thousand men, the withdrawal from the 
kingdom of sixty millions of livres, the enemy's fleets swelled by nine 
thousand sailors, the best in the kingdom, and the enemy's armies by 
six hundred officers and twelve thousand soldiers, who had seen service." 
It is a natural but a striking fact that the reformers who left France 
and were received with open arms in Brandenburg, Holland, England 
and Switzerland carried in their hearts a profound hatred for the king 
who drove them away from their country and everywhere took service 
against him, while the Protestants who remained in France, bound to 
the soil by a thousand indissoluble ties, continued at the same time to 
be submissive and faithful. 

The peace of Ryswick had not brought the Protestants the hoped 
for alleviation of their woes. Louis XIV. haughtily rejected the petition 
of the English and Dutch plenipotentiaries on behalf of " those in afflic- 
tion who ought to have their share in the happiness of Europe." The 
persecution everywhere continued, with determination and legality in the 
North, with violence and passion in the South, abandoned to the tyranny 
of M. de Lamoignon de Baville, a crafty and cold-bloodedly cruel poli- 
tician, without the excuse of any zealous religious conviction. The execu- 
12 



178 FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. [1661 

tion of several ministers who had remained in hiding in the Cevennes 
or had returned from exile to instruct and comfort their flocks raised 
to the highest pitch the enthusiasm of the reformers of Languedoc. 
Deprived of their highly prized assemblies and of their pastors' guidance, 
men and women, graybeards and children, all at once fancied themselves 
animated by the spirit of prophecy. Young girls had celestial visions ; 
the little peasant-lasses poured out their utterances in French, sometimes 
in the language and with the sublime eloquence of the Bible, sole source 
of their religious knowledge. In vain did M. de Baville have three hundred 
children imprisoned at Uzes, and then send them to the galleys ; the 
religious contagion was too strong for the punishments ; " women found 
themselves in a single day husbandless, childless, houseless and penniless," 
says the historian Court : they remained immovable in their pious ecstasy ; 
the assemblies multiplied ; the troops which had so long occupied Languedoc 
had been summoned away by the war of succession in Spain ; the militia 
could no longer restrain the reformers, growing every day more enthu- 
siastic through the prophetic hopes which were born of their long sufferings. 

The insurrection of the Cevenols, or, as the Catholic peasants called them, 
the Camisards, led by Jean Cavalier, Roland and others, was put down by 
Marshal Villars, after many vicissitudes of successes and reverses. Little by 
little the chiefs were killed off in petty engagements or died in obscurity of 
their wounds; provisions were becoming scarce; the country was wasted; 
submission became more frequent every day. The principals all demanded 
leave to quit France. Some partial risings alone recalled, up to 1709, the fact 
that the old leaven still existed ; the war of the Camisards was over. It was 
the sole attempt in history on the part of French Protestantism since Riche- 
lieu, a strange and dangerous effort made by an ignorant and savage people, 
roused to enthusiasm by persecution, believing itself called upon by the spirit 
of God to win, sword in hand, the freedom of its creed, under the leadership 
of two shepherd-soldiers and prophets. The silence of death succeeded every- 
where in France to the plaints of the reformers and to the crash of arms ; 
Louis XIV. might well suppose that Protestantism in his dominions was 
dead. 

It was a little before the time when the last of the Camisards, Abraham 
Mazel and Claris, perished near Uzes (in 1710), that the king struck the last 
blow at Jansenism by destroying its earliest nest and its last refuge, the house 
of the nuns of Port-Royal des Champs. With truces and intervals of apparent 
repose, the struggle had lasted more than sixty years between the Jesuits and 
Jansenism. M. de St. Cyran, who left the Bastile a few months after the 
death of Richelieu, had dedicated the last days of his life to writing against 
Protestantism, being so much the more scared by the heresy in that, perhaps, 
he felt himself attracted thereto by a secret af^nity. He was already dying 
when there appeared the book Freque^ite Communion, by M. Arnauld, young- 
est son and twentieth child of that illustrious family of Arnaulds, in whom 
Jansenism seemed to be personified. The author was immediately accused at 



171 5] FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. 179 

Rome and buried himself for twenty years in retirement. " Sir, tell your 
Fathers, when I am dead, not to triumph, and that I leave behind me a dozen 
stronger than I." With all his penetration the director of consciences was 
mistaken. M. Arnauld was a great theologian, an indefatigable controversial- 
ist, the oracle and guide of his friends in their struggle against the Jesuits; 
M. de Sacy and M. Singlin were wise and able directors, as austere as M. de 
St. Cyran in their requirements, less domineering and less rough than he ; but 
M. de St. Cyran alone was and could be the head of Jansenism ; he alone 
could have inspired that idea of immolation of the whole being to the 
sovereign will of God, as to the truth which resides in Him alone. Once 
assured of this point, M. de St. Cyran became immovable. 

Mother Angelica Arnauld was the most perfect image and the most 
accomplished disciple of M. de St. Cyran. More gentle and more human 
than he, she was quite as strong and quite as zealous. A reformer of many a 
convent since the day when she had closed the gates of Port-Royal against her 
father, M. Arnauld, in order to restore the strictness of the cloister. Mother 
Angelica carried rule along with her, for she carried within herself the govern- 
ment, rigid no doubt, for it was life in a convent, but characterized by generous 
largeness of heart, which caused the yoke to be easily borne. 

Mother Angelica was nearing the repose of eternity, the only repose ad- 
mitted by her brother M. Arnauld, when the storm of persecution burst upon 
the monastery. The Aiigiistinus of Jansenius, bishop of Ypres, a friend of M. 
de St. Cyran's, had just been condemned at Rome. Five propositions con- 
cerning grace were extracted from the book, and pronounced heretical. The 
opposers of what was called Jansenist doctrines employed every means in 
their power to have these propositions condemned by the court of Rome ; 
and having obtained to this effect two bulls from the popes Innocent X. and 
Alexander VII., their next object was to secure the promulgation of these 
documents in the dominions of the French king. An assembly of court- 
bishops drew up a declaration which was subsequently made more valid still 
by the king's own signature, and which became obligatory on all ecclesiastical 
persons throughout France. A negotiation was opened with the archbishop 
of Paris, for the purpose of endeavoring to obtain from him a pastoral letter 
conceived in moderate terms. Several meetings took place among the Jan- 
senists, Pascal and Domat deciding against all compliance contrary to Christian 
truth and sincerity, while Nicole and Arnauld wrote in favor of conditional 
obedience. The latter prevailed ; the authority of Arnauld especially carried 
along with it the votes of the majority. Port-Royal had breathed its last ! In 
the year 1709 the monastery was destroyed, and not even the sanctity of the 
grave was respected by the agents of Louis XIV. Dogs were seen disputing 
the mangled remains of bodies torn from what should have been their last 
resting-place. 

Nevertheless the publication of the Reflexions siir le Noitveau Testament, 
by Quesnel, a priest of the congregation of the Oratory (1671), revived all the 
disputes, and proved the vitality of the doctrines with which the name of 



i8o FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. [1661 

Jansenism had been connected. One hundred and one propositions extracted 
from the work were condemned at Rome by the bull Uiiigenitus, and Louis 
XIV., in 1712, bound the whole French clergy to adhere to that condemna- 
tion under penalty of disgrace, prison and exile. Quietism was proscribed 
quite as strictly as Jansenism. It is well known that a pious but mistaken 
lady, Madame Guyon, had endeavored to spread a kind of mystical form of 
relio-ion introduced previously by a Spanish priest, Michael de Molinos, and 
condemned by Pope Innocent XL Through the Duke de Beauvilliers this 
lady became acquainted with Fenelon. Naturally inclined to the contempla- 
tive sort of piety which springs more from the heart than from the 
understanding, the prelate adopted Madame Guyon's views, and a kind of 
sect was soon organized at court, of which the Dukes de Beauvilliers and 
de Chevreuse, Fenelon and Madame Guyon were the leaders. The bishop of 
Chartres, in whose diocese the establishment was, soon perceived what the 
consequences would be of allowing an exalted, quintessentiated form of 
mysticism to spread through a community of young girls. He warned 
Madame de Maintenon ; and this lady accordingly desired that Madame 
Guyon's works and opinions should be examined by a committee composed of 
Bosseut, M. de Noailles, bishop of Chalons, and Tronson, superior of the 
ecclesiastical college of St. Sulpice, in Paris. Fenelon had openly taken 
Madame Guyon's part ; he was therefore quite as much on his trial as the fair 
disciple of Molinos ; but he expressly declared that he would abide by the 
decision of the examiners, especially that of Bossuet ; and, as a reward for his 
submission, Madame de Maintenon secured his nomination to the archbishop- 
ric of Cambrai. The disappointment was general ; and the Countess de 
Guiche, among many others, is said to have been so mortified, that she could 
not conceal her tears. In order to secure by other means the authority which 
his nomination to the see of Cambrai could not give him, Fenelon courted the 
Jesuits, openly acknowledged his sympathy for them, and did his utmost to 
conciliate men whose power at Versailles was then without control. 

The result of the conference held at Issy proved null ; Madame Guyon 
persevered in promulgating the principles of Molinos, and Quietism seemed to 
spread more rapidly than ever. Exasperated at Fenelon's questionable be- 
havior, and at the determination with which he supported the condemned 
doctrines, after having promised to yield to the decision of the examiners, 
Bossuet prepared his celebrated Instructions sur les Etats d O7'aison. Fenelon, 
however, was ready beforehand ; he refused to approve the work of the 
bishop of Meaux, and published in support of his opinions the well-known 
volume containing the maxims of the saints on the spiritual life. Madame 
Guyon was arrested, Fenelon exiled in his diocese, and the pope requested to 
pronounce judgment in a case respecting which there could hardly be any 
difficulty. The archbishop of Cambrai was condemned, and whatever may 
have been his errors during the course of this affair, he redeemed them by the 
dignity with which he bore his disgrace. 

Bossuet was the real head and the pride of the great Catholic Church of 



1715] FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. 181 

France in the seventeenth century; what he approved of was approved of by 
the immense majority of the French clergy, what he condemned was con- 
demned by them. It was with pain and not without having sought to escape 
therefrom that he found himself obliged, at the assembly of the clergy in 1682, 
to draw up the solemn declaration of the Galilean Church. The meeting of 
the clergy had been called forth by the eternal discussions of the civil power 
with the court of Rome on the question of the rights of regale, that is to say, 
the rights of the sovereign to receive the revenues of vacant bishoprics and to 
appoint to benefices belonging to them. The French bishops were of indepen- 
dent spirit; the archbishop of Paris, Francis de Harlay, was on bad terms with 
Pope Innocent XI. ; Bossuet managed to moderate the discussions and kept 
within suitable bounds the declaration which he could not avoid. He had 
always taught and maintained what was proclaimed by the assembly of the 
clergy of France, that " St. Peter and his successors, vicars of Jesus Christ, and 
the whole Church itself received from God authority over only spiritual matters 
and such as appertain to salvation, and not over temporal and civil matters, 
in such sort that kings and sovereigns are not subject to any ecclesiastical 
power, by order of God, in temporal matters, and can not be deposed directly 
or indirectly by authority of the keys of the Church ; finally that, though the 
pope has the principal part in questions of faith, and though his decrees con- 
cern all the churches and each church severally, his judgment is, nevertheless, 
not irrefragable, unless the consent of the Church intervene." Old doctrines 
in the Church of France, but never before so solemnly declared and made 
incumbent upon the teaching of all the faculties of theology in the kingdom. 

Bossuet had died on the 12th of April, 1704. The king was about to 
bring the Jansenist question before his bed of justice when he fell ill : " I am 
sorry to leave the affairs of the Church in the state in which they are," he said 
to his councillors ; " I am perfectly ignorant in the matter ; you know and I 
call you to witness that I have done nothing therein but what you wanted, 
and that I have done all you wanted ; it is you who will answer before God 
for all that has been done, whether too much or too little ; I charge you with 
it before Him, and I have a clear conscience ; I am but a know-nothing who 
have left myself to your guidance." An awful appeal from a dying king to 
the guides of his conscience ; he had dispeopled his kingdom, reduced to exile, 
despair or falsehood fifteen hundred thousand of his subjects, but the memory 
of the persecutions inflicted upon the Protestants did not trouble him ; they 
were, for him, rather a pledge of his salvation and of his acceptance before 
God ; he was thinking of the Catholic Church, the holy priests exiled or im- 
prisoned, the nuns driven from their convent, the division among the bishops, 
the scandal among the faithful ; the great burden of absolute power was 
evident to his eyes ; he sought to let it fall back upon the shoulders of those 
who had enticed him or urged him upon that fatal path. A vain attempt in 
the eyes of men, whatever may be the judgment of God's sovereign mercy; 
history has left weighing upon Louis XIV. the crushing weight of the religious 
persecutions ordered under his reign. 



i82 FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. [1661 

Pascal, had he been born later, would have remained independent and 
proud, from the nature of his mind and of his character, as well as from the 
connection he had full early with Port-Royal, where they did not rear court- 
iers ; he died, however, at thirty-nine, in 1661, the very year in which Louis 
XIV. began to govern. Born at Clermont in Auvergne, educated at his 
father's and by his father, though it was not thought desirable to let him 
study mathematics, he had already discovered by himself the first thirty-two 
propositions of Euclid. Richelieu, however, died three years later, without 
having done anything for the children who had impressed him, beyond giving 
their father a share in the superintendence of Rouen ; he thus put them in 
the way of the great Corneille, who was affectionately kind to Jacqueline, but 
took no particular notice of Blaise Pascal. The latter was seventeen ; he had 
already written his Traite des Coniques {Treatise on Conies) and begun to 
occupy himself with " his arithmetical machine," as his sister, Madame Perier, 
calls it. At twenty-three he had ceased to apply his mind to human siences ; 
" when he afterward discovered the roulette {cycloid), it was without thinking," 
says Madame Perier, " and to distract his attention from a severe tooth-ache he 
had." He was not twenty-four when anxiety for his salvation and for the 
glory of God had taken complete possession of his soul. 

The Provincials could not satisfy for long the pious ardor of Pascal's 
soul ; he took in hand his great work on the Verite de la Religion, but unfor- 
tunately was unable to finish it. '• God, who had inspired my brother with 
this design and with all his thoughts," writes his sister, '' did not permit him 
to bring it to its completion, for reasons to us unknown," 

In 1627, four years after Pascal, and, like him, in a family of the long 
robe, was born, at Dijon, his only rival in that great art of writing prose 
which established the superiority of the French language. At sixteen, 
Bossuet preached his first sermon in the drawing-room of Madame de Ram- 
bouillet, and the great Conde was pleased to attend his theological examina- 
tions. He was already famous at court as a preacher and a polemist when 
the king gave him the title of bishop of Condom, almost immediately inviting 
him to become preceptor to the dauphin. 

Bossuet labored conscientiously to instruct his little prince, studying for 
him and with him the classical authors, preparing grammatical expositions, 
and, lastly, writing for his edification. The labor was in vain ; the very lofti- 
ness of his genius, the extent and profundity of his views, rendered Bossuet 
unfit to get at the heart and mind of a boy who was timid, idle and kept in 
fear by the king as well as by his governor. The dauphin was nineteen when 
his marriage restored Bossuet to the Church and to the world ; the king 
appointed him almoner to the dauphiness and, before long, bishop of Meaux. 
He was writing incessantly, all the while that he was preaching at Meaux 
and at Paris, making funeral orations over the queen, Maria Theresa, over the 
Princess Palatine, Michael le Tellier and the prince of Conde ; the edict of 
Nantes had just been revoked : controversy with the Protestant ministers, 
headed by Claude and Jurieu, occupied a great space in the life of the bishop 



1715] FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. 183 

of Meaux ; he at that time wrote his Histoire dcs Variations, often unjust and 
violent, always able in its attacks upon the Reformation. 

Bossuet died at Paris on the 12th of April, 1704, just when the troubles 
of the Church were springing up again. Great was the consternation among 
the bishops of France, wont as they were to shape themselves by his counsels. 
" Men were astounded at this mortal's mortality." Bossuet was seventy- 
three. 

A month later, on the 13th of May, Father Bourdaloue in his turn died : 
a model of close logic and moral austerity, with a stiff and manly eloquence, 
so impressed with the miserable insufficiency of human efforts, that he said as 
he was dying, " My God, I have wasted life, it is just that Thou recall it." 
There remained only Fenelon in the first rank, which Massillon did not as yet 
dispute with him. Malebranche was living retired in his cell at the Oratory, 
seldom speaking, writing his Recherches stir la Verity {Researches into TriitJi) 
and his Entretiens sur la Me'tapJiysique {Discourses on Metaphysics), bolder in 
thought than he was aware of or wished, sincere and natural in his medita- 
tions as well as in his style. 

Fenelon was born in Perigord, at the castle of Fenelon, on the 6th of 
August, 165 1. Like Cardinal de Retz he belonged to an ancient and noble 
house, and was destined from his youth for the Church. He had held himself 
modestly aloof, occupied with confirming nczu Catholics in their conversion or 
with preaching to the Protestants of Poitou ; he had written nothing but his 
Traite' deV EdiLcation des Filles, intended for the family of the duke of Beauvil- 
liers, and a book on the ministere die pasteur. He was in bad odor with Har- 
lay, archbishop of Paris, who had said to him curtly one day : " You want to 
escape notice, M. Abbe, and you will ; " nevertheless, when Louis XIV. chose 
the duke of Beauvilliers as governor to his grandson, the duke of Burgundy, 
the duke at once called Fenelon, then thirty-eight years of age, to the impor- 
tant post of preceptor. 

Fenelon's best known work is Telcmagiie. " It is a fabulous narrative," 
he himself says, " in the form of a heroic poem, like Homer's or Virgil's, 
wherein I have set forth the principal actions that are meet for a prince whose 
birth points him out as destined to reign. I did it at a time when I was 
charmed with the marks of confidence and kindness showered upon me by the 
king." 

Telemague was published, without any author's name and by an indiscre- 
tion of the copyist's, on the 6th of April, 1699. Fenelon was in exile at his 
diocese ; public rumor before long attributed the work to him ; the Maximes 
des Saints had just been condemned, Telemaque was seized, the printers were 
punished ; some copies had escaped the police ; the book was reprinted in 
Holland ; all Europe read it, finding therein the allusion and undermeanings 
against which Fenelon defended himself. Louis XIV. was more than ever 
angry with the archbishop. 

Fenelon died in disgrace, leaving among his friends, so diminished already 



i84 FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. [1661 

by death, an immeasurable gap, and among his adversaries themselves the 
feeling of a great loss. 

Leaving the desert and the Church and once more entering the world we 
immediately encounter, among women, one, and one only, in the first rank — 
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marchioness of Sevigne, born at Paris on the 5th 
of February, 1627, five months before Bossuet. Madame de Sevigne is a 
friend whom we read over and over again, whose emotions we share, to whom 
we go for an hour's distraction and delightful chat. Madame de Sevigne's 
letters to her daughter are superior to all her other letters, charming as they 
are ; when she writes to M. de Pomponne, to M. de Coulanges, to M. de 
Bussy, the style is less familiar, the heart less open, the soul less stirred ; she 
writes to her daughter as she would speak to her ; it is not letters, it is an 
animated and charming conversation, touching upon everything, embellishing 
everything with an inimitable grace. 

After having suffered so much from separation and so often traversed 
France to visit her daughter in Provence, Madame de Sevign6 had the 
happiness to die in her house at Grignan. She was sixty-nine when an attack 
of small-pox carried her off on the 19th of April, 1696, 

All the women who had been writers in her time died before Madame de 
Sevigne. Madame de Motteville, a judicious and sensible woman, more 
independent at the bottom of her heart than in externals, had died in 16S9, 
exclusively occupied, from the time that she lost Queen Anne of Austria, in 
works of piety and in drawing up her Memoires. Mdlle. de Montpensier, 
" my great Mademoiselle," as Madame de Sevigne used to call her, had died 
at Paris on the 5th of April, 1693, after a violent illness, as feverish as her 
life. A few days after Mademoiselle, died, likewise at Paris, Madelaine de la 
Vergne. marchioness of La Fayette, the most intimate friend of Madame de 
Sevigne. Sensible, clever, a sweet and safe acquaintance, Madame de La 
Fayette was as simple and as true in her relations with her confidants as in her 
writings. La Princesse de Cleves alone has outlived the times and the friends 
of Madame de La Fayette. 

Madame de La Fayette had in her life one great sorrow which had 
completed the ruin of her health. On the i6th of March, 1680, after the 
closest and longest of intimacies, she had lost her best friend, the duke of 
La Rochefoucauld. He had lost his son at the passage of the Rhine, in 
1672. He was ill, suffering cruelly. " I was yesterday at M. de La Roche- 
foucauld's," writes Madame de Sevign^ in 1680: "I found him uttering loud 
shrieks : his pain was such that his endurance was quite overcome without a 
single scrap remaining ; the excessive pain upset him to such a degree that 
he was setting out in the open air with a violent fever upon him. He begged 
me to send you word and to assure you that the wheel-broken do not suffer 
during a single moment what he suffers one half of his life, and so he wishes 
for death as a happy release." He died with Bossuet at his pillow. M. de 
La Rochefoucauld thought worse of men than of life. " I have scarcely any 
fear of things," he had said : " I am not at all afraid of death." With all his 



1715] FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. 185 

rare qualities and great opportunities, he had done nothing but frequently 
embroil matters in which he had meddled, and had never been anything but a 
great lord with a good deal of wit. Actionless penetration and skeptical 
severity may sometimes clear the judgment and the thoughts, but they give 
no force or influence that has power over men. 

Cardinal de Retz had more wits, more courage and more resolution than 
the duke of La Rochefoucauld ; he was more ambitious and more bold ; he 
was, like him, meddlesome, powerless and dangerous to the State. He 
thought himself capable of superseding Cardinal Mazarin and far more worthy 
than he of being premier minister ; but every time he found himself opposed 
to the able Italian, he was beaten. All that he displayed, during the Fronde, 
of address, combination, intrigue and resolution would barely have sufficed 
to preserve his name in history, if he had not devoted his leisure in his 
retirement to writing his Memoires. Vigorous, animated, always striking, 
often amusing, sometimes showing rare nobleness and high-mindedness, his 
stories and his portraits transport us to the very midst of the scenes he 
desires to describe and the personages he makes the actors in them. His 
rapid, nervous, picturesque style, is the very image of that little dark, quick, 
agile man more soldier than bishop, and more intriguer than soldier, faithfully 
and affectionately beloved by his friends, detested by his very numerous 
enemies, and dreaded by many people, for the causticity of his tongue, long 
after the troubles of the Fronde had ceased, and he was reduced to be a 
wanderer in foreign lands, still archbishop of Paris without being able to set 
foot in it. 

Mesdames de S^vigne and de La Fayette were of the court, as were the 
duke of La Rochefoucauld and Cardinal de Retz ; La Bruyere lived all his 
life rubbing shoulders with the court ; he knew it, he described it, but he was 
not of it and could not be of it. Nothing is known of his family. He was 
born at Dourdan, in 1639, and had just bought a post in the Treasury 
{trcsoricr dc France) at Caen, when Bossuet, who knew him, induced him to 
remove to Paris as teacher of history to the duke, grandson of the great 
Conde. He remained forever attached to the person of the prince, who gave 
him a thousand crowns a year, and he lived to the day of his death at Conde's 
house. 

More earnest and less bitter than La Rochefoucauld, and as brilliant and 
as firm as Cardinal de Retz, La Bruyere was a more sincere believer than 
either. 

We pass from prose to poetry, from La Bruyere to Corneille, who had 
died in 1684, too late for his fame, in spite of the vigorous returns of genius 
which still flash forth sometimes in his feeblest works. Through the regency 
and the Fronde, Corneille had continued to occupy almost alone the great 
French stage. Rotrou, his sometime rival with his piece of Venccslas and 
ever tenderly attached to him, had died, in 1650, at Dreux, of which he was 
civil magistrate. An epidemic was ravaging the town, and he was urged to 
go away : " I am the only one who can maintain good order, and I shall 



i86 FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. [1661 

remain," he replied : " at the moment of my writing to you the bells are 
toUing for the twenty-second person to-day ; perhaps, to-morrow it will be for 
me, but my conscience has marked out my duty ; God's will be done ! " Two 
days later he was dead. 

Posterity has done for Corneille more than Louis XIV. could have done : 
it has left in oblivion Agesilas, Attila, Titles and Pulcherie, it has preserved 
the memory of the triumphs only. The poet was accustomed to say with a 
smile, when he was reproached with his slowness and emptiness in conversa- 
tion : " I am Peter Corneille all the same." The world has passed similar 
judgment on his works ; in spite of the rebuffs of his latter years, he has 
remained " the great Corneille." 

When he died, in 1684, Racine, elected by the Academy in 1673, found 
himself on the point of becoming its director : he claimed the honor of 
presiding at the obsequies of Corneille. The latter had not been admitted to 
the body until 1641, after having undergone two rebuffs. Corneille had died 
in the night. The Academy decided in favor of Abbe de Lavau, the 
outgoing director. " Nobody but you could pretend to bury Corneille," said 
Benserade to Racine, " yet you have not been able to obtain the chance." It 
was only when he received into the Academy Thomas Corneille, in his brother's 
place, that Racine could praise, to his heart's content, the master and rival 
who, in old age, had done him the honor to dread him. At that time, his 
own dramatic career was already ended. He was born, in 1639, at La Ferte- 
Milon ; he had made his first appearance on the stage in 1664, with the 
Freres ennemis, and had taken leave of it in 1673 with Phedre. 

Racine for a long while enjoyed the favors of the king, who went so far 
as to tolerate the attachment the poet had always testified toward Port-Royal. 
Racine, moreover, showed tact in humoring the susceptibilities of Louis XIV. 
and his counselors. All this caution did not prevent him, however, from 
displeasing the king. After a conversation he had held with Madame de 
Maintenon about the miseries of the people, she asked him for a memorandum 
on the subject. The king demanded the name of the author and flew out at 
him. " Because he is a perfect master of verse," said he, " does he think he 
knows everything? And, because he is a great poet, does he want to be 
minister?" On the 21st of April, 1699, the great poet, the scrupulous 
Christian, the noble and delicate painter of the purest passions of the soul, 
expired at Paris at fifty-nine years of age, leaving life without regret, spite of 
all the successes with which he had been crowned. 

Boileau himself had entered the arena of letters at three-and-tw-enty, 
after a sickly and melancholy childhood. The Art Poetique and the Lutrin 
appeared in 1674; the first nine Satires and several of the Epistles had 
preceded them. Rather a witty, shrewd and able versifier than a great poet, 
Boileau displayed in the Lutrin a richness and suppleness of fancy which his 
other works had not foreshadowed. He survived all his friends ; La Fontaine, 
born in 1621 at Chateau-Thierry, had died in 1695. La Fontaine has been 
described as a solitary being, without wit and without external charm of any 



1715] FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. 187 

kind. We are told that La Fontaine knew nothing of natural history ; he 
knew and loved animals ; up to his time, fable-writers had been merely 
philosophers or satirists ; he was the first who was a poet, unique not only in 
France but in Europe, discovering the deep and secret charm of nature, 
animating it with his inexhaustible and graceful genius, giving lessons to men 
from the example of animals, without making the latter speak like man, ever 
supple and natural, sometimes elegant and noble, with penetration beneath 
the cloak of his simplicity, inimitable in the line which he had chosen from 
taste, from instinct, and not from want of power to transport his genius 
elsewhere. 

A charming and a curious being, serious and simple, profound and 
childlike, winning by reason of his very vagaries, his good-natured originality, 
his helplessness in common life, La Fontaine knew how to estimate the 
literary merits as well as the moral qualities of his illustrious friends ; Moliere, 
in particular, was appreciated by him at once, and he commemorated the 
death of the great comic writer in a touching epitaph. 

Shakespeare might dispute with Corneille and Racine the scepter of 
tragedy. He had succeeded in showing himself as full of power, with more 
truth, as the one, and as full of tenderness, with more profundity, as the 
other ; Moliere is superior to him in originality, abundance and perfection of 
characters ; he yields to him neither in range, nor penetration, nor complete 
knowledge of human nature. The lives of these two great geniuses, authors 
and actors both together, present in other respects certain features of 
resemblance. 

It has been a labor of love to go into some detail over the lives, works 
and characters of the great writers during the age of Louis XIV. They did 
too much honor to their time and their country, they had too great and too 
deep an effect in France and in Europe upon the successive developments of 
the human intellect to refuse them an important place in the history of that 
France to whose influence and glory they so pov/erfully contributed. 

In this brief survey of French literature we should not forget to mention 
the French Academy, which had grown and found its liberty had increased 
under the sway of Louis XIV. ; it held its sittings at the Louvre, and, as 
regarded complimentary addresses to the king on state occasions, it took rank 
with the sovereign bodies. The Academy of Medals and Inscriptions was 
founded by Colbert in 1662, "in order to render the acts of the king immortal 
by deciding the legends of the medals struck in his honor." Pontchartrain 
raised to forty the number of the members of the petite academie, as it was 
called, extended its functions, and entrusted it thenceforth with the charge of 
publishing curious documents relating to the history of France. The 
Academy of Sciences had already for many years had sittings in one of the 
rooms of the king's library. Like the French Academy, it had owed its 
origin to private meetings at which Descartes, Gassendi and young Pascal 
were accustomed to be present. Colbert had the true scholar's taste ; he had 
brought Cassini from Italy to take the direction of the new Observatory ; he 



i88 FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. [1661 

had ordered surveys for a general map of France ; he had founded the 
Journal dcs Savants ; literary men, whether Frenchmen or foreigners, enjoyed 
the king's bounties ; Colbert had even conceived the plan of a universal 
academy, a veritable forerunner of the Institute. The arts were not 
forgotten in this grand project ; the Academy of Painting and Sculpture 
dated from the regency of Anne of Austria ; the pretensions of the Masters 
of Arts {inaitres es arts), who placed an interdict upon artists not belonging 
to their corporation, had driven Charles Lebrun, himself the son of a Master, 
to agitate for its foundation ; Colbert added to it the Academy of Music and 
the Academy of Architecture, and created the French school of painting at 
Rome. 

Philip of Campagne deserves a prominent place in the brilliant roll of 
French seventeenth century artists. He had passionately admired Le 
Poussin, he had attached himself to Lesueur. This upright, simple pains- 
taking soul, this inflexible conscience, looking continually into the human 
face, had preserved in his admirable portraits the life and the expression of 
nature which he was incessantly trying to seize and reproduce. Lebrun was 
preferred to him as first painter to the king by Louis Xl V. himself ; Philip 
of Champagne was delighted thereat ; he lived in retirement, in fidelity to his 
friends of Port-Royal, whose austere and vigorous lineaments he loved to 
trace, beginning with M. de St. Cyran, and ending with his own daughter, 
Sister Suzanne, who was restored to health by the prayers of Mother Agnes 
Arnauld. 

Lebrun was as able a coutier as he was a good painter : the clever 
arrangement of his pictures, the richness and brilliancy of his talent, his 
faculty for applying art to industry, secured him with Louis XIV. a sway 
which lasted as long as his life. He was first painter to the king, he was 
director of the Gobelins and of the Academy of Painting. After Lebrun's 
death (1690) Mignard became first painter to the king. He painted the 
ceiling of the Val-de-Grace which was celebrated by Moliere, but it was as a 
painter of portraits that he excelled in France. To Mignard succeeded 
Rigaud as portrait-painter, worthy to preserve the features of Bossuet and 
Fenelon. The unity of organization, the brilliancy of style, the imposing 
majesty which the king's taste had everywhere stamped about him upon art 
as well as upon literature, were by this time beginning to decay simultane- 
ously with the old age of Louis XIV., with the reverses of his arms and the 
increasing gloominess of his court ; the artists who had illustrated his reign 
were dying one after another as well as the orators and the poets ; the 
sculptor James Sarazin had been gone some time ; Puget and the Anguiers 
were dead, as well as Mansard, Perrault and Le Notre ; Girardon had but a 
few months to live ; only Coysevox was destined to survive the king whose 
statue he had many a time molded. The great age was disappearing slowly 
and sadly, throwing out to the last some noble gleams, like the aged king 
who had constantly served as its center and guide, like olden France which he 
had crowned with its last and its most splendid wreath. 



I7I5] FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATIONS. 189 

The principle of absolute power, firmly fixed in the young king's mind, 
began to pervade his court from the time that he disgraced Fouquct and 
ceased to dissemble his affection for Mdlle. de La Valliere. She was young, 
charming and modest. Of all the king's favorites she alone loved him 
sincerely. " What a pity he is a king!" she would say. Louis XIV. made 
her a duchess ; but all she cared about was to see him and please him. When 
Madame de Montespan began to supplant her in the king's favor, the grief of 
Madame de La Valliere was so great that 9~he thought she should die of it. 
Then she turned to God, in penitence and despair ; and, later on, it was at her 
side that Madame de Montespan, in her turn forced to quit the court, went to 
seek advice and pious consolation. " This soul will be a miracle of grace," 
Bossuet had said. 

Madame de Montespan was haughty, passionate, " with hair dressed in a 
thousand ringlets, a majestic beauty to show off to the ambassadors ; " she 
openly paraded the favor she was in, accepting and angling for the graces the 
king was pleased to do her and hers, having the superintendence of the house- 
hold of the queen, whom she insulted without disguise, to the extent of 
wounding the king himself : " Pray consider that she is your mistress," he 
said one day to his favorite. The scandal was great ; Bossuet attempted the 
task of stopping it. It was the time of the Jubilee : neither the king nor 
Madame de Montespan had lost all religious feeling ; the wrath of God and 
the refusal of the sacraments had terrors for them still. 

The great Mademoiselle had just attempted to show her independence ; 
tired of not being married, she had made up her mind to a love-match ; she 
did not espouse Lauzun just then, the king broke off the marriage. " I Avill 
make you so great," he said to Lauzun, "that you shall have no cause to 
regret what I am taking from you ; meanwhile, I make you duke and peer 
and marshal of France." " Sir," broke in Lauzun insolently, " you have 
made so many dukes that it is no longer an honor to be one, and, as for the 
baton of marshal of France, your Majesty can give it me when I have earned 
it by my services." He was before long sent to Pignerol, where he passed 
ten years. There he met Fouquet and that mysterious personage called the 
Iron Mask, whose name has not yet been discovered to a certainty by means 
of all the most ingenious conjectures. It was only by settling all her property 
on the duke of Maine after herself that Mademoiselle purchased Lauzun's 
release. The king had given his posts to the prince of Marcillac, son of La 
Rochefoucauld. 

All the style of living at court was in accordance with the magnificence 
of the king and his courtiers ; Colbert was beside himself at the sums the 
queen lavished on play. Madame de Montespan lost and won back four 
millions in one night at bassette ; .Mdlle. de Fontanges gave away twenty 
thousand crowns' worth of New Year's gifts. A new power, however, was 
beginning to appear on the horizon, with such modesty and backwardness 
that none could as yet discern it, least of all could the king. Madame de 
Montespan had looked out for some one to take care of and educate her 



I90 FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. [1661 

children. She had thought of Madame Scarron ; she considered her clever ; 
she was so herself, " in that unique style which was peculiar to the Morte- 
marts," said the duke of St. Simon ; she was fond of conversation ; Madame 
Scarron had a reputation for being rather a blue-stocking ; this the king did 
not like ; Madame de Montespan had her way ; Madame Scarron took charge 
of the children secretly and in an isolated house. She was attentive, careful, 
sensible. The king was struck with her devotion to the children entrusted to 
her. " She can love," he said : " it would be a pleasure to be loved by her." 
This expression plainly indicated what was to happen ; and Madame de 
Montespan saw herself supplanted by Madame Scarron. The widow of the 
deformed poet had bought the estate of Maintenon out of the king's bounty. 
He made her take the title. The recollection of Scarron was displeasing to 
him. 

The queen had died on the 30th of July, 1683, piously and gently, as she 
had lived. " This is the first sorrow she ever caused me," said the king, thus 
rendering homage, in his superb and unconscious egotism, to the patient 
virtue of the wife he had put to such cruel trials. Madame de Maintenon 
was agitated but resolute. The date has never been ascertained exactly of 
the king's private marriage with Madame de Maintenon. It took place 
probably eighteen months or two years after the queen's death ; the king was 
forty-seven, Madame de Maintenon fifty. " She had great remains of beauty, 
bright and sprightly eyes, an incomparable grace," says St. Simon, who 
detested her, " an air of ease and yet of restraint and respect, a great deal of 
cleverness with a speech that was sweet, correct, in good terms and naturally 
eloquent and brief." 

The chief ornament of the court of Versailles was the duchess of 
Burgundy. For the king and for Madame de Maintenon, the great and inex- 
haustible attraction of this young lady was her gayety and unconstrained 
ease, tempered by the most delicate respect, which, on coming as quite a 
child to France from the court of Savoy, she had tact enough to introduce 
and always maintain amid the most intimate familiarity. 

The dauphiness had died in 1690; the duchess of Burgundy was, there- 
fore, almost from childhood, queen of the court and before long the idol of 
the courtiers ; it was around her that pleasures sprang up ; it was for her that 
the kino- gave the entertainments to which he had habituated Versailles, not 
that for her sake or to take care of her health he would ever consent to 
modify his habits or make the least change in his plans. " Thank God, it is 
over " he exclaimed one day, after an accident to the princess ; " I shall no 
loncrer be thwarted in my trips, and in all I desire to do by the representa- 
tions of physicians. I shall come and go as I fancy ; and I shall be left in 
peace." Even in his court and among his most devoted servants, this 
monstrous egotism astounded and scandalized everybody. ^ 

Flattery, at Versailles, ran a risk of becoming hypocrisy. On returning 
to a regular life, the king was for imposing the same upon his whole court ; 
the instinct of order and regularity, smothered for awhile in the hey-day of 



171 5] FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. 191 

passion, had resumed all its sway over the naturally proper and steady mind 
of Louis XIV. The king was sincere in his repentance for the past, many 
persons in his court were as sincere as he ; others, who were not, affected, in 
order to please him, the externals of austerity ; absolute power oppressed all 
spirits, extorting from them that hypocritical complaisance which it is liable 
to engender ; corruption was already brooding beneath appearances of piety ; 
the reign of Louis XV. was to see its deplorable fruits displayed with a 
haste and a scandal which are to be explained only by the oppression exer- 
cised in the last years of King Louis XIV. 

Madame de Maintenon was like the genius of this reaction toward 
regularity, propriety, order ; all the responsibility for it has been thrown upon 
her ; the good she did has disappeared beneath the evil she allowed or 
encouraged ; the regard lavished upon her by the king has caused illusions as 
to the discreet care she was continually taking to please him. She was faith- 
ful to her friends, so long as they were in favor with the king ; if they had 
the misfortune to displease him, she, at the very least, gave up seeing them ; 
without courage or hardihood to withstand the caprices and wishes of Louis 
XIV., she had gained and preserved her empire by dint and dexterity and 
far-sighted suppleness beneath the externals of dignity. 

It was through Madame de Maintenon and her correspondence with the 
Princess des Ursins that the private business between the two courts of 
France and Spain was often carried on. At Madrid far more than at 
Versailles the influence of women was all-powerful. The queen ruled her 
husband, who was honest and courageous but without wit or daring ; and the 
Princess de Ursins ruled the queen, as intelligent and as amiable as her sister 
the duchess of Burgundy, but more ambitious and more haughty. Louis 
XIV. had several times conceived some misgiving of the cainarera major's 
influence over his grandson ; she had been disgraced and then recalled ; she 
had finally established her sway by her fidelity, ability, dexterity and indom- 
itable courage. 

But the time came for Madame des Ursins to make definitive trial of 
fortune's inconstancy. After having enjoyed unlimited power and influence, 
with great difficulty she obtained an asylum at Rome, where she lived seven 
years longer, preserving all her health, strength, mind and easy grace until 
she died, in 1722, at more than eighty-four years of age, in obscurity and sad- 
ness, notwithstanding her opulence, but avenged of her Spanish foes, Cardi- 
nals della Giudice and Alberoni, whom she met again at Rome, disgraced and 
fugitive like herself. 

"■ One has no more luck at our age," Louis XIV. had said to his oki 
friend Marshal Villars, returning from his most disastrous campaign. It was 
a bitter reflection upon himself which had put these words into the king's 
mouth. After the most brilliant, the most continually and invariably 
triumphant of reigns, he beg^n to see fortune slipping away from him and 
the grievous consequences of his errors successively overwhelming the State. 
"God is punishing me ; I have richly deserved it," he said to Marshal Villars, 



192 FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. [1661 

who was on the point of setting out for the battle of Denain. The aged king^ 
dispirited and beaten, could not set down to men his misfortunes and reverses ; 
the hand of God Himself was raised against his house ; Death was knocking 
double knocks all round him. The grand-dauphin had for some days past 
been ill of small-pox ; he died in April, 1711; the duchess of Burgundy was 
carried off by an attack of malignant fever in February, 1712 ; her husband 
followed her within a week, and their eldest child, the duke of Brittany, about 
a month afterward. 

There was universal and sincere mourning in France and in Europe. The 
most sinister rumors circulated darkly ; a base intrigue caused the duke of 
Orleans to be accused ; people called to mind his taste for chemistry and even 
magic, his flagrant impiety, his scandalous debauchery. Beside himself with 
grief and anger, he demanded of the king to be sent to the Bastile ; the king 
refused curtly, coldly, not unmoved in his secret heart by the perfidious insin- 
uations which made their way even to him, but too just and too sensible to 
entertain a hateful lie, which, nevertheless, lay heavy on the duke of Orleans 
to the end of his days. 

Darkly, but to no more effect, the same rumors were renewed before 
long. The duke of Berry died at the age of twenty-seven, on the 4th of May, 
1714, of a disease which presented the same features as the scarlet fever 
{rojigcolc fioiirprcc), to which his brother and sister-in-law had succumbed. 
The king was old and sad : the state of his kingdom preyed upon his mind •■ 
he was surrounded by influences hostile to his nephew, whom he himself 
called " a vaunter of crimes." A child who was not five years old remained 
sole heir to the throne. Madame de Maintenon, as sad as the king, " natur- 
ally mistrustful, addicted to jealousies, susceptibilities, suspicions, aversions, 
spites, and woman's wiles," being, moreover, sincerely attached to the king's 
natural children, was constantly active on their behalf. On the 19th of 
July, 1 7 14, the king announced to the premier president and the attorney- 
general of the parliament of Paris that it was his pleasure to grant to the 
duke of Maine and to the count of Toulouse, for themselves and their 
descendants, the rank of princes of the blood, in its full extent, and that he 
desired that the deed should be enregistered in the parliament. Soon after, 
still under the same influence, he made a will which was kept a profound 
secret and which he sent to be deposited in the strong-room {greffe) of the 
parliament, committing the guardianship of the future king to the duke of 
Maine, and placing him, as well as his brother, on the council of regency, 
with close restrictions as to the duke of Orleans, who would be naturally 
called to the government of the kingdom during the minority. The "will was 
darkly talked about : the effect of the elevation of bastards to the rank of 
princes of the blood had been terrible. He had only just signed his will 
when he met, at Madame de Maintenon's, the ex-queen of England. " I 
have made my will, Madame," said he; "I have purchased repose; I know 
the impotence and uselessness of it. We can do all we please as long as we 



I/I 5] FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. 193 

are here ; after we are gone, Ave can do less than private persons ; we have 
only to look at what became of my father's, and immediately after his death 
too, and of those of so many other kings. I am quite aware of that ; but, 
in spite of all that, it was desired; and so, Madame, you see it has been done ; 
come of it what may, at any rate I shall not be worried about it any more." 
It was the old man yielding to the entreaties and intrigues of his domestic 
circle ; the judgment of the king remained steady and true, without illusions 
and without prejudices. 

Death was coming, however, after a reign which had been so long, and 
had occupied so much room in the world, that it caused mistakes as to the 
very age of the king. He was seventy-seven ; he continued to work with his 
ministers ; the order so long and so firmly established was not disturbed by 
illness any more than it had been by the reverses and sorrows of late. The 
king said farewell to Madame de Maintenon : she still remained a little while 
in his room, and went out when he was no longer conscious. She had given 
away here and there the few movables that belonged to her, and now took 
the road to St. Cyr. On the steps she met Marshal Villeroy : " Good-by, 
marshal," she said curtly and covered up her face in her coifs. He it was who 
sent her news of the king to the last moment. The duke of Orleans, on 
becoming regent, went to see her and took her the patent {brevet) for a 
pension of sixty thousand livres, " which her disinterestedness had made 
necessary for her," said the preamble. It was paid her up to the last day of 
her life. History makes no further mention of her name ; she never left St. 
Cyr. Thither the czar Peter the Great, when he visited Paris and France, 
went to see her ; she was confined to her bed ; he sat a little while beside her. 
" What is your malady?" he asked her through his interpreter. "A great 
age," answered Madame de Maintenon, smiling. He looked at her a moment 
in silence ; then, closing the curtains, he went out abruptly. The memory he 
would have called up had vanished. The woman on whom the great king 
had, for thirty years, heaped confidence and affection was old, forgotten, 
dying; she expired at St. Cyr on the 15th of April, 1719, at the age of eighty- 
three. 

She had left the king to die alone. He was in the agonies; the prayers 
in extremity were being repeated around him ; the ceremonial recalled him to 
consciousness. He joined his voice with the voices of those present, repeat- 
ing the prayers with them. Already the court was hurrying to the duke of 
Orleans; some of the more confident had repaired to the duke of Maine's; 
the king's servants were left almost alone around his bed ; the tones of the 
dying man were distinctly heard above the great number of priests. He 
several times repeated : Nunc ct in Jiora mortis. Then he said quite loud : 
*'0 my God, come Thou to help me, haste Thou to succor me." Those were 
his last words. He expired on Sunday, the ist of September, 171 5, at 8. 
A.M. Next day he would have been seventy-seven years of age, and he had 
reigned seventy-two of them. 
13 



194 



FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. 



n/is 



In spite of his faults and his numerous and culpable errors, Louis XIV.. 
had lived and died like a king. The slow and grievous agony of olden France 
was about to begin. 

xm. 



Louis xv., the Ek&eey, Caedinal Dubois and 
Cardinal EE Eledry. 

(1715-1748.) 

NDER Henry IV., under Richelieu, under Louis XIV.,. 
events found quite naturally their guiding hand and 
their center; men as well as circumstances formed a 
group around the head of the nation, whether king or 
minister, to thence unfold themselves quite clearly be- 
fore the eyes of posterity. Starting from the reign of 
Louis XV. the nation has no longer a head, history no 
longer a center; at the same time with a master of the higher 
order, great servants also fail the French monarchy ; it all at once 
collapses, betraying thus the exhaustion of Louis XIV.'s latter 
years ; decadence is no longer veiled by the remnants of the splen- 
dor which was still reflected from the great king and his great, 
reign ; the glory of olden France descends slowly to its grave. At 
the same time, and in a future as yet obscured, intellectual progress, 
begins to dawn ; new ideas of justice, of humanity, of generous 
equity toward the masses germinate sparsely in certain minds ; it is 
no longer Christianity alone that inspires them, though the honor 
is reflected upon it in a general way and as regards the principles with which 
it has silently permeated modern society, but they who contribute to spread 
them refuse with indignation to acknowledge the source whence they have 
drawn them. Intellectual movement no longer appertains exclusively to the 
higher classes, to the ecclesiastics, or to the members of the parliaments; 
vaguely as yet, and retarded by apathy in the government as well as by disor- 
der in affairs, it propagates and extends itself, imperceptibly pending that 
signal and terrible explosion of good and evil which is to characterize the 
close of the eighteenth century. Decadence and progress are going on con- 
fusedly in the minds as well as in the material condition of the nation. They 
must be distinguished and traced without any pretense of separating them. 
There we have the reign of Louis XV. in its entirety. 
Louis XIV. had made no mistake about the respect which his last wishes 
were to meet with after his death. His will was as good as annulled ; it was 
opened, it was read, and so were the two codicils. All the authority was 




1748] FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. 195 

entrusted to a council of regency of which the duke of Orleans was to be the 
head, but without preponderating voice and without power to supersede any 
of the members, all designated in advance by Louis XIV. The person and 
the education of the young king, as well as the command of the household 
troops, were entrusted to the duke of Maine. The parliament applauded the 
formation of the six councils of foreign affairs, of finance, of war, of the marine, 
of Jiovie or the interior, of conscience or ecclesiastical affairs ; the regent was 
entrusted with the free disposal of graces. 

The victory was complete. Not a shred remained of Louis XIV.'s will. 
The duke of Maine, confounded and humiliated, retired to his castle of Sceaux, 
there to endure the reproaches of his wife. The king's affection and Madame 
de Maintenon's clever tactics had not sufificed to found his power ; the remain- 
ing vestiges of his greatness were themselves about to vanish before long in 
their turn. 

On the 1 2th of September, the little king held a bed of justice ; his gov- 
erness, Madame de Ventadour, sat alone at the feet of the poor orphan, aban- 
doned on the pinnacle of power. All the decisions of September 2d were 
ratified in the child's name. Louis XIV. had just descended to the tomb 
without pomp and without regret. 

The new councils had already been constituted, when it was discovered 
that commerce had been forgotten ; and to it was assigned a seventh 
body. How singular are the monstrosities of inexperience ! At the head 
of the council of finance a place was found for the duke of Noailles, 
active in mind and restless in character, without any fixed principles, 
an adroit and a shameless courtier, strict in all religious observances 
under Louis XIV. and a notorious debauchee under the regency, but 
intelligent, insolent, ambitious, hungering and thirsting to do good if he 
could, but evil if need were and in order to arrive at his ends. His 
uncle, Cardinal Noailles, who had been but lately threatened by the court 
of Rome with the loss of his hat, and who had seen himself forbidden 
to approach the dying king, was now president of the council of conscience. 
Marshal d'Huxelles, one of the negotiators who had managed the treaty 
of Utrecht, was at the head of foreign affairs. The regent had reserved 
to himself one simple department, the Academy of Sciences. 

The regent's predilection, consolidating the work of Colbert, contributed 
to the development of scientific researches, for which the neatness and 
clearness of French thought rendered it thenceforth so singularly well 
adapted. 

The gates of the prison were meanwhile being thrown open to many 
a poor creature ; the Jansenists left the Bastile ; others, who had been 
for a long time past in confinement, were still ignorant of the grounds 
for their captivity, which was by this time forgotten by everybody. 
For awhile the Protestants thought they saw their advantage in the 
clemency with which the new reign appeared to be inaugurated, and 
began to meet again in their assemblies; the regent had some idea of 



196 FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. [1715 

doing them justice, re-establishing the edict of Nantes and re-opening to 
the exiles the doors of their country, but his councillors dissuaded him, 
the more virtuous, like St. Si-mon, from catholic piety, the more depraved 
from policy and indifference. However, the lot of the Protestants remained 
under the regency less hard than it had been under Louis XIV. and 
than it became under the duke of Bourbon. The chancellor, Voysin, 
had just died. To this post the regent summoned the attorney-general, 
D'Aguesseau, beloved and esteemed of all, learned, eloquent, virtuous, 
but too exclusively a man of parliament for the functions which had 
been confided to him. 

The new system of government, as yet untried and confided to men 
for the most part little accustomed to affairs, had to put up with the 
most formidable difficulties and to struggle against the most painful 
position. The treasury was empty and the country exhausted ; the army 
was not paid and the most honorable men, such as the duke of St. 
Simon, saw no other remedy for the evils of the State but a total 
bankruptcy and the convocation of the States-general. Both expedients 
were equally repugnant to the duke of Orleans. The duke of Noailles 
had entered upon a course of severe economy; the king's household was 
diminished, twenty-five thousand men were struck off the strength of the 
army, exemption from talliage for six years was promised to all such 
discharged soldiers as should restore a deserted house and should put 
into cultivation the fields lying waste. In order to re-establish the finances, 
the duke of Noailles demanded fifteen years' impracticable economy, as 
chimerical as the increment of the revenues on which he calculated ; and 
the duke of Orleans finally suffered himself to be led away by the 
brilliant prospect which was flashed before his eyes by the Scotsman 
Law, who had now for more than two years been settled in France. 

Law, born in Edinburgh in 1671, son of a goldsmith, had for a* 
long time been scouring Europe, seeking in a clever and systematic 
course of gambling a source of fortune for himself and the first foun- 
dation of the great enterprises he was revolving in his singularly inventive 
and daring mind. Passionately devoted to the financial theories he had 
conceived. Law had expounded them to all the princes of Europe in 
succession. The regent had not the same repugnance as Louis XIV. 
for novelties of foreign origin ; so soon as he was in power, he authorized 
the Scot to found a circulating and discount bank, which at once had 
very great success and did real service. Encouraged by this first step, 
Law reiterated to the regent that the credit of bankers and merchants 
decupled their capital ; if the State became the universal banker and 
centralized all the values in circulation, the public fortune would naturally 
be decupled. The system was not as yet applied ; the discreet routine 
of the French financiers was scared at such risky chances, the pride of 
the great lords sitting in the council was shocked at the idea of seeing 
the State turning banker, perhaps even trader. Law went on, however ; 



1729] FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. 197 

to his bank he had just added a great company. The king ceded to 
him Louisiana, which was said to be rich in gold and silver mines 
superior to those of Mexico and Peru. People vaunted the fertility of 
the soil, the facility offered for trade by the extensive and rapid stream 
of the Mississippi ; it was by the name of that river that the ne-fv 
company was called at first, though it soon took the title of Compagnic 
d' Occident, when it had obtained the privilege of trading in Senegal and 
in Guinea. For the generality, and in the current phraseology, it remained 
the Mississippi ; and that is the name it has left in history. New Orleans 
was beginning to arise at the mouth of that river. Law had bought 
Belle-Isle-en-Mer, and was constructing the port of Lorient. 

The regent's councillors were scared and disquieted ; the chancellor 
proclaimed himself loudly against the deception or illusion which made 
of Louisiana a land of promise. This opposition, resulting from the purest 
motives, caused his temporary disgrace ; he was ordered by the regent 
to give up the seals, which were entrusted to D'Argenson. The die had 
been cast and the duke of Orleans outstripped Law himself in the 
application of his theories. A company, formed secretly, and protected 
by the new keeper of the seals, had bought up the general farmings, 
that is to say, all the indirect taxes, for the sum of forty-eight million 
fifty-two thousand livres ; the Compagnie dcs Indcs re-purchased them for 
fifty-two million ; the general receipts were likewise conceded to it, and 
Law's bank was proclaimed a royal bank ; the company's shares already 
amounted to the supposed value of all the coin circulating in the kingdom, 
estimated at seven or eight hundred millions. Law thought he might 
risk everything in the intoxication which had seized all France, capital 
and province. He created some fifteen hundred millions of new shares, 
promising his shareholders a dividend of twelve per cent. From all parts 
silver and gold flowed into his hands ; everywhere the paper of the 
bank was substituted for coin. The delirium mastered all minds. The 
most modest fortunes suddenly became colossal, lackeys of yesterday 
were millionaires to-morrow ; extravagance followed the progress of this 
outburst of riches, and the price of provisions followed the progress of 
extravagance. 

This extraordinary financial delusion did not, could not last. Law 
had brought with him to France a considerable fortune ; he had scarcely 
enough to live upon when he retired to Venice, where he died some 
years later (1729), convinced to the last of the utility of his system, at 
the same time he acknowledged the errors he had committed in its 
application. 

Throughout the successive periods of intoxication and despair caused 
by the necessary and logical development of Law's scheme, the duke of 
Orleans had delt other blows and directed other affairs of importance. 
Easy-going, indolent, often absorbed by his pleasures, the regent found 
no great difficulty in putting up with the exaltation of the legitimatized 



198 FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. [1716 

princes ; it had been for him sufficient to wrest authority from the duke 
of Maine : he let him enjoy the privileges of a prince of the blood. 
But the duke of Bourbon, heir of the house of Conde, fierce in temper, 
violent in his hate, greedy of honors as well as of money, had just 
arrived at man's estate, and was wroth at sight of the bastards' greatness. 
He drew after him the count of Charolais his brother, and the prince 
of Conti his cousin: on the 22d of April, 1716, all three presented to 
the king a request for the revocation of Louis XIV.'s edict declaring 
his legitimatized sons princes of the blood and capable of succeeding 
to the throne. 

The regent saw the necessity of firmness. The rights thereto were 
maintained in the case of the duke of Maine and the count of Toulouse^ 
for their lives, by the bounty of the regent. 

In the excess of her indignation and wrath the duchess of Maine 
determined not to confine herself to reproaches. She had passed her life in 
elegant entertainments, in sprightly and frivolous intellectual amusements ; 
ever bent on diverting herself, she made up her mind to taste the pleasure of 
vengeance, and set on foot a conspiracy, as frivolous as her diversions. The 
object, however, was nothing less than to overthrow the duke of Orleans, and 
to confer the regency on the king of Spain, Philip V., with a council and a 
lieutenant, who was to be the duke of Maine. 

Some scatter-brains of great houses were mixed up jn the affair: MM. de 
Richelieu, De Laval, and De Pompadour ; there was secret coming and going- 
between the castle of Sceaux and the house of the Spanish ambassador, the 
prince of Cellamare ; M. de Malezieux, the secretary and friend of the 
duchess, drew up a form of appeal from the French nobility to Philip V., but 
nobody had signed it or thought of doing so. They got pamphlets written by 
Abbe Brigault, whom the duchess had sent to Spain ; the mystery was 
profound and all the conspirators were convinced of the importance of their 
maneuvers ; every day, however, the regent was informed of them by his 
most influential negotiator with foreign countries, Abb6 Dubois, his late tutor, 
and the most depraved of all those who were about him. Able and vigilant 
as he was, he was not ignorant of any single detail of the plot, and was only 
giving the conspirators time to compromise themselves. At last, just as a 
young abb6, Porto Carrero, was starting for Spain, carrying important papers, 
he was arrested at Poitiers and his papers were seized. Next day, December 
7th, 1718, the prince of Cellamare's house was visited and the streets were 
lined with troops. 

At 6 A.M. the king's men entered the duke of Maine's house. The 
regent had for a long time delayed to act, as if he wanted to leave everybody 
time to get away ; but the conspirators were too careless to take the trouble. 
The duchess Avas removed to Dijon, within the government and into the very 
house of the duke of Bourbon her nephew, which was a very bitter pill for 
her. The duke of Maine, who protested his innocence and his ignorance, was 
detained in the castle of Dourlans in Picardy. Cellamare received his 



1717] FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. 199. 

passports and quitted France. The less illustrious conspirators were all put 
in the Bastile ; the majority did not remain there long, and purchased their 
liberty by confessions, which the duchess of Maine ended by confirming. 

The only serious result of Cellamare's conspiracy was to render imminent 
a rupture with Spain. From the first days of the regency the old enmity of 
Philip V. toward the duke of Orleans and the secret pretensions of both of 
them to the crown of France, in case of little Louis XV. 's death, rendered 
the relations between the two courts thorny and strained at bottom, though 
still perfectly smooth in appearance. It was from England that Abb^ Dubois 
urged the regent to seek support. " Avarice, debauchery, ambition were his 
gods ; perfidy, flattery, slavishness his instruments ; and complete unbelief his 
comfort. He excelled in low intrigues ; the boldest lie was second nature to 
him, with an air of simplicity, straightforwardness, sincerity, and often 
bashfulness." In spite of all these vices, and the depraving influence he had 
exercised over the duke of Orleans from his earliest youth, Dubois was able, 
often far-sighted, and sometimes bold ; he had a correct and tolerably 
practical mind. 

Inspired by Dubois, weary of the weakness and dastardly incapacity of 
the pretender, the regent consented to make overtures to the king of 
England. The Spanish nation was favorable to France, but the king was 
hostile to the regent; the English loved neither France nor the regent, but 
their king had an interest in severing France from the pretender forever. 
Dubois availed himself ably of his former relations with Lord Stanhope, 
heretofore commander of the English troops in Spain, for commencing a 
secret negotiation which soon extended to Holland, still closely knit to 
England. The order of succession to the crowns of France and England, 
conformably to the peace of Utrecht, was guaranteed in the schem.e of 
treaty ; that was the only important advantage to the regent, who considered 
himself to be thus nailing the renunciation of Philip V.; in other respects all 
the concessions came from the side of France ; her territory was forbidden 
ground to the Jacobites, and the pretender, who had taken refuge at Avignon 
on papal soil, was to be called upon to cross the Alps. Dubois yielded on all 
the points, defending to the last with fruitless tenacity the title of king of 
France, which the English still disputed. The negotiations came to an end 
at length on the 6th of January, 171 7, and Dubois wrote in triumph to the 
regent: " I signed at midnight; so there are you quit of servitude (your own 
master), and here am I quit of fear." 

At the moment when the signature was being put to the treaty of the 
triple alliance, the sovereign of most distinction in Europe, owing to the 
eccentric renown belonging to his personal merit, the czar Peter the Great, 
had just made flattering advances to France. He had some time before 
wished to take a trip to Paris, but Louis XIV. was old, melancholy and 
vanquished, and had declined the czar's visit. The regent could not do the 
same thing, when, being at the Hague in 1 717, Peter I. repeated the expres- 
sion of his desire. Marshal Coss^ was sent to meet him, and the honors due 



200 



FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. [1717 



to the king himself were everywhere paid to him on the road. He testified 
toward the regent a famihar good grace mingled with a certain "superiority. 
At his first interview with the little king, he took up the child in his arms and 
kissed him over and over again, "with an air of tenderness and politeness which 
was full of nature and nevertheless intermixed with a something of grandeur, 
equality of rank and, slightly, superiority of age; for all that was distinctly per- 
ceptible." One of his first visits was to the church of the Sorbonne ; when he 
caught sight of Richelieu's monument, he ran up to it, embraced the statue, 
and, "Ah! great man," said he, "if thou wert still alive, I would give thee 
one half of my kingdom to teach me to govern the other." 

Amid all his chatting, studying, and information-hunting, Peter the Great 
did not forget the political object of his trip. He wanted to detach France 
from Sweden, her heretofore faithful ally, still receiving a subsidy which the 
czar would fain have appropriated to himself. Together with his own alliance 
he promised that of Poland and of Prussia. " France has nothing to fear 
from the emperor," he said : as for King George, whom he detested, " if any 
rupture should take place between him and the regent, Russia would suffice to 
fill toward France the place of England as well as of Sweden." 

Thanks to the ability of Dubois, the regent felt himself infeoffed to 
England ; he gave a cool reception to the overtures of the czar, who proposed 
a treaty of alliance and commerce. Prussia had already concluded secretly 
with France ; Poland was distracted by intestine struggles ; matters were 
confined to the establishment of amicable relations ; France thenceforth 
maintained an ambassador in Russia, and the czar accepted the regent's 
mediation between Sweden and himself. 

Alberoni had restored the finances and reformed the administration of 
Spain ; he was preparing an army and a fleet, meditating, he said, to bring 
peace to the world, and beginning that great enterprise by maneuvers which 
tended to nothing less than setting fire to the four corners of Europe, in the 
name of an enfeebled and heavy-going king, and of a queen ambitious, adroit, 
and unpopular. He dreamed of reviving the ascendency of Spain in Italy, 
of overthrowing the Protestant king of England, while restoring the Stuarts 
to the throne, and of raising himself to the highest dignities in Church and 
State. He had already obtained from Pope Clement XI. the cardinal's hat, 
disguising under pretext of war against the Turks the preparations he was 
making against Italy ; he had formed an alliance between Charles XII. and 
the czar, intending to sustain by their united forces the attempts of the 
Jacobites in England. His first enterprise, at sea, made him master of 
Sardinia within a few days ; the Spanish troops landed in Sicily. The emperor 
and Victor Amadeo were in commotion ; tliw^ pope, overwhelmed Avith 
reproaches by those prilj^es, wept, after his fashion, saying that he had 
damned himself by raising Alberoni to the Roman purple; Dubois profited by 
the disquietude excited in Europe by the bellicose attitude of the Spanish 
minister to finally draw the emperor into the alliance between France and 
England. France and England left Holland and Savoy free to accede to the 



1719] FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. 



201 



treaty ; but, if Spain refused to do so voluntarily within a specified time, the 
alhes engaged to force her thereto by arms. 

The Hollanders hesitated. Certain advantages secured to their commerce 
at last decided the States-general. Victor Amadco regretfully acceded to 
the treaty which robbed him of Sicily : he was promised one of the regent's 
daughters for his son. 

Alberoni refused persistently to accede to the great coalition brought 
about by Dubois. The hope of a sudden surprise in England, on behalf of 
the Jacobites, had been destroyed by the death of the king of Sweden, 
Charles XII., killed on the 12th of December, 171 8, at Frciderishalt, in 
Norway; in spite of the feverish activity of his mind and the frequently 
chimerical extent of his machinations, Alberoni remained isolated in Europe, 
without ally and without support. 

The treaty of the quadruple alliance had at last come to be definitively 
signed. Some days later appeared, almost at the same time — the 17th of 
December, 171 8, and the 9th of January, 17 19 — the manifestoes of England 
and France, proclaiming the resolution of making war upon Spain, while 
Philip v., by a declaration of December 25th, 1718, pronounced all renuncia- 
tions illusory, and proclaimed his right to the throne of France in case of the 
death of Louis XV. At the same time he made an appeal to an assembly of 
the States-general against the tyranny of the regent, " who was making 
alliances," he said, "with the enemies of the two crowns." 

Preparations for war were actively carried on in France ; the prince of 
Conti was nominally at the head of the army, Marshal Berwick was entrusted 
with the command. He accepted it, in spite of his old connections with 
Spain, the benefits which Philip V. had heaped upon him, and the presence of 
his eldest son, the duke of Liria, in the Spanish ranks. Everywhere the 
depots were committed to the flames : this cruel and destructive war against 
an enemy, whose best troops were fighting far away and who was unable to 
offer more than a feeble resistance, gratified the passions and the interests of 
England rather than of France. 

Alberoni attempted in vain to create a diversion by hurling into the 
midst of France the brand of civil war. Philip V. was beaten at home as 
well as in Sicily. The regent succeeded in introducing to the presence of 
the king of Spain an unknown agent, who managed to persuade the monarch 
that the cardinal was shirking his responsibility before Europe, asserting that 
the king and queen had desired the war and that he had confined himself to 
gratifying their passions. The duke of Orleans said, at th.e same time, quite 
openly, that he made war not against Philip V. or against Spain, but against 
Alberoni only. Lord Stanhope declared, in the name of England, that no 
peace was possible, unless its preliminary were the^^missal of the pernicious 
minister. 

The cardinal's fall was almost as speedy as that which he had but lately 
contrived for his enemy the Princess des Ursins. On the 4th of December, 
1719, he received orders to quit Madrid within eight days and Spain under 



202 



FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. [1719 



three weeks. So great success in negotiation, however servile had been his 
bearing, he little by little increased the influence of Dubois over his master. 
The reo-ent knew and despised him, but he submitted to his sway and yielded 
to his desires, sometimes to his fancies. Dubois had for a long while 
comprehended that the higher dignities of the Church could alone bring him 
to the grandeur of which he was ambitious ; he obtained the see of Cambrai, 
strange to say, through the influence of a Protestant king, George I. The 
reo-ent, as well as the whole court, was present at the ceremony, to the great 
scandal of the people attached to religion. Dubois received all the orders on 
the same day ; and, when he was joked about it, he brazen-facedly called to 
mind the precedent of St, Ambrose. 

On the 2 1st of July, 17 19, the duchess of Berry, eldest daughter of the 
regent, had died at the Palais-Royal, at barely twenty-four years of age ; her 
health, her beauty, and her wit were not proof against the irregular life she 
had led. Ere long a more terrible cry arose from one of the chief cities of 
the kingdom: '' The plague," they said, ''is at Marseilles, brought, none 
knows how, on board a ship from the East." The bishop of Marseilles, 
Monseigneur de Belzunce, the sheriffs Esteile and Moustier, and a simple 
officer of health, Chevalier Roze, sufficed in the depopulated town for all 
duties and all acts of devotion. The example of the prelate animated with 
courageous emulation — not the clergy of lazy and emasculated dignitaries, for 
they fled at the first approach of danger, but — the parish-priests, the vicars, 
and the religious orders ; not one deserted his colors, not one put any bound 
to his fatigues save with his life. 

Marseilles had lost a third of its inhabitants ; Aix, Toulon, Aries, the 
Cevennes, the Gevaudan were attacked by the contagion; fearful was the 
want in the decimated towns, long deprived of every resource. Scarcely, 
however, had they escaped from the dreadful scourge which had laid them 
waste, when they plunged into excesses of pleasure and debauchery, as if to 
fly from the memories that haunted them. 

Dubois, meanwhile, was nearing the goal of all his efforts. In order to 
obtain the cardinal's hat, he had embraced the cause of the court of Rome, 
and was pushing forward the registration by parliament of the bull Unigenitus. 
The long opposition of the duke of Noailles at last yielded to the desire of 
restoring peace in the Church. In his wake the majority of the bishops and 
communities who had made appeal to the contemplated council renounced, in 
their turn, the protests so often renewed within the last few years. The 
parliament was divided, but exiled to Pontoise, as a punishment for its 
opposition to the system of Law ; it found itself threatened with removal to 
Blois. D'Aguesseau gave in his resignation to the regent, the parliament did 
not leave for Blois ; after sitting some weeks at Pontoise, it enregistered the 
formal declaration of the bull, and at last returned to Paris on the 20th of 
December, 1720. 

On the i6th of July; 172 1, Dubois was at last elected cardinal : it was 
stated that his elevation had cost eight rpillions of livres ; he became premier 



1723] FRANCE.— LOUIS XV 



20- 



minister in name, after having long been so in fact. His reign was not long 
at this unparalleled pinnacle of his greatness ; he had been summoned to 
preside at the assembly of the clergy, and had just been elected to the French 
Academy, where he was received by Fontenelle, when a sore from which he 
had long suffered reached all at once a serious crisis ; an operation was 
indispensable, but he set himself obstinately against it ; the duke of Orleans 
obliged him to submit to it, and it was his death-blow ; the wretched cardinal 
expired, without having had time to receive the sacraments. 

On the 2d of December, 1723, three months and a half after the death of 
Dubois, the duke of Orleans succumbed in his turn. Struck down by a sudden 
attack of apoplexy, while he was chatting with his favorite for the time, the 
duchess of Falarie, he expired without having recovered consciousness. 
Lethargized by the excesses of the table and debauchery of all kinds, more 
and more incapable of application and work, the prince did not preserve suffi- 
cient energy to give up the sort of life which had ruined him. All the vices 
thus imputed to the regent did not perish with him, when he succumbed at 
forty-nine years of age under their fatal effects. " The evil that men do lives 
after them ; the good is oft interred with their bones ;" the regency was the 
signal for an irregularity of morals which went on increasing like a filthy river, 
up to the end of the reign of Louis XV. - From the court the evil soon spread 
to the nation ; religious faith stiil struggled within the soul, but it had for a 
long while been tossed about between contrary and violent opinions, it found 
itself disturbed, attacked, by the new and daring ideas which were beginning 
to dawn in politics as well as in philosophy. The break-up was already be- 
coming manifest, though nobody could account for it, though no fixed plan 
was conceived in men's minds. People devoured the memoirs of Cardinal 
Retz and Madame de Motteville, which had just appeared; people formed 
from them their judgments upon the great persons and great events which 
they had seen and depicted. The University of Paris, under the direction of 
RoUin, was developing the intelligence and lively powers of burgessdom ; and 
Montesquieu, as yet full young, was shooting his missiles in the Lettres per- 
sa7ies at the men and the things of his country with an almost cynical freedom, 
which was as it were the alarum and prelude of all tlie liberties which he 
scarcely dared to claim, but of which he already let a glimpse be seen. Evil 
and good were growing up in confusion, like the tares and the wheat. For 
more than eighty years past France had been gathering the harvest of ages ; 
she has not yet separated the good grain from the rubbish which too often 
conceals it. 

The bishop of Frejus, who had but lately been the modest preceptor of 
the king and was quietly ambitious and greedy of power, but without regard 
to his personal interests, was about to become Cardinal Fleury and to govern 
France for twenty years; in 1723, he Avas seventy years old. Whether from 
adroitness or prudence, Fleury did not all at once aspire to all-powerfulness. 
He kept the list of benefices, and he alone, it was said, knew how to unloosen 
the king's tongue; but he had not calculated upon the pernicious and all-pow- 



204 FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. [1724 

erful influence of the marchioness of Prie, favorite "by appointment" 
iattitrie) to the duke. Clever, adroit, depraved, she aspired to govern, and 
chose for her minister Paris-Duverney, one of the four Dauphinese brothers 
who had been engaged under the regency in the business of the visa, and the 
enemies as well as rivals of the Scotsman Law. 

This new statesman, imbued with the maxims of order and regularity for- 
merly impressed by Colbert upon the clerks of the Treasury, and not yet 
completely effaced by a long interregnum, he labored zealously to cut down 
expenses and useless posts, to resuscitate and regulate commerce. The com- 
motion among the people was great; the workmen rioted, the tradesmen 
refused to accept the legal figure for their goods ; several men were killed in 
the streets, and some shops put the shutters up. The misery, which the 
administration had meant to relieve, went on increasing; begging was prohib- 
ited ; refuges and workshops were annexed to the poor-houses ; attempts were 
made to collect there all the old, infirm and vagabond. All this rigor was 
ineffectual; the useful object of Paris-Duverney's decrees was not attained. 

Other outrages, not to be justified by any public advantage, were being 
at the same time committed against other poor creatures, for a long while 
accustomed to severities of all kinds. Without freedom, without right of 
worship, without assemblies, the Protestants had, nevertheless, enjoyed a sort 
of truce from their woes during the easy-going regency of the duke of Orleans. 
Among the number of his vices Dubois did not include hypocrisy ; he had not 
persecuted the remnants of French Protestantism, enfeebled, dumb, but still 
living and breathing. Paris-Duverney and Madame de Prie returned to the 
pohcy of Louis XIV.; they published in 1724 an edict which equaled in rigor 
the most severe proclamations of the previous reign ; it placed the peace and 
often the life of reformers at the mercy not only of an enemy's denunciation, 
but of a priest's simple deposition ; it destroyed all the bonds of family and 
substituted for the natural duties a barbarous and depraving law, but general 
sentiment and public opinion were no longer in accord with the royal procla- 
mations. Throughout a persecution which lasted nearly forty years, with 
alternations of severity and clemency, the chiefs of French Protestantism, 
Paul Rabaut, Court, and others equally distinguished, managed to control the 
often recurring desperation of their flocks. The execution of the unhappy 
Calas, accused of having killed his son, and the generous indignation of Vol- 
taire cast a momentary gleam of light within the somber region of prisons and 
gibbets. For the first time public opinion, at white heat, was brought to bear 
upon the decision of the persecutors. Calas was dead, but the decree of the 
parliament of Toulouse, which had sentenced him, was quashed by act of the 
council ; his memory was cleared, and the day of toleration for French Protest- 
ants began to glimmer, pending the full dawn of justice and liberty. 

The young king was growing up, still a stranger to affairs, solely occupied 
with the pleasures of the chase, handsome, elegant, with noble and regular 
features,. a cold and listless expression. In the month of February, 1725, he 
fell ill ; for two days there was great danger. The duke thought himself to 



1733] FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. 205 

be threatened with the elevation of the house of Orleans to the throne. "I'll 
not be caught so again," he muttered between his teeth, when he came one 
night to inquire how the king was: "if he recovers, I'll have him married." 
The choice fell upon Mary Leckzinski, a good, gentle, simple creature, with- 
out wit or beauty, twenty-two years old and living upon the alms of France 
with her parents, exiles and refugees at an old commandery of the Templars 
at Weissenburg. Before this king Stanislaus had conceived the idea of marry- 
ing his daughter to Count d'Estrees ; the marriage had failed through the 
regent's refusal to make the young lord a duke and peer. 

Fleury had made no objection to the marriage. Louis XV. accepted it, 
just as he had allowed the breaking-off of his union with the infanta and that 
of France with Spain. For awhile the duke had hopes of reaping all the 
fruit of the unequal marriage he had just concluded for the king of France ; 
but the hour of his downfall had arrived ; he was ordered to quit the court 
and retire provisionally to Chantilly. Madame de Prie was exiled to her es^ 
tates in Normandy, where she soon died of spite and anger. The head of the 
house of Cond6 came forth no more from the political obscurity which befitted 
his talents. At length Fleury remained sole master. 

He took possession of it without fuss or any external manifestation ; car- 
ing only for real authority, he advised Louis XV. not to create any premier 
minister and to govern b/ himself, like his great-grandfather. The king took 
this advice, as every other, and left Fleury to govern. This was just what the 
bishop intended ; a sleepy calm succeeded the commotions which had been 
caused by the inconsistent and spasmodic government of the duke ; galas and 
silly expenses gave place to a wise economy, the real and important blessing 
of Fleury's administration. Commerce and industry recovered confidence; 
business was developed ; the increase of the revenues justified a diminution of 
taxation ; war, which was imminent at the moment of the duke's fall, seemed 
to be escaped; the bishop of Frejus became Cardinal Fleury; the court of 
Rome paid on the nail for the services rendered it by the new minister in 
freeing the clergy from the tax of the fiftieth {impot du cinquantihnc). The 
clergy responded to this pleasant exposition of principles by a gratuitous gift 
of five millions. Strife ceased in every quarter; France found herself at rest, 
without luster as well as without prospect. 

The efforts made in common by Fleury and Robert Walpole, prime 
minister of the king of England, were for a long while successful in maintain- 
ing the general peace; the unforeseen death of Augustus of Saxony, king of 
Poland, suddenly came to trouble it. It was, thenceforth, the unhappy fate 
of Poland to be a constant source of commotion and discord in Europe. The 
elector of Saxony, son of Augustus II., was supported by Austria and Russia ; 
the national party in Poland invited Stanislaus Leckzinski ; he was elected at 
the diet by sixty thousand men of family, and set out to take possession of 
the throne, reckoning upon the promises of his son-in-law, and on the 
military spirit which was reviving in France. The young men burned to win 
their spurs ; the old generals of Louis XIV. were tired of idleness. 



2o6 FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. [1733 

Russia and Austria made an imposing display of force in favor of the 
elector of Saxony ; France sent, tardily, a body of fifteen hundred men ; this, 
ridiculous re-enforcement had not yet arrived when Stanislaus, obliged to with- 
draw from Warsaw, had already shut himself up in Dantzic. The Austrian 
general had invested the place. 

News of the bombardment of Dantzic greeted the little French corps as 
they approached the fort of Wechselmunde. Their commander saw his 
impotence ; instead of landing his troops, he made sail for Copenhagen. The 
French ambassador at that court, Count Plelo, was indignant to see his 
countrymen's retreat, and, hastily collecting a hundred volunteers, he 
summoned to him the chiefs' of the expeditionary corps. The officer in 
command of the detachment, M, de la Peyrouse Lamotte, yields to his 
entreaties. They set out both of them, persuaded at the same time of the 
uselessness of their enterprise and of the necessity they were under, for the 
honor of France, to attempt it. Scarcely had the gallant little band touched 
land beneath the fort of Wechselmunde, when they marched up to the 
Russian lines, opening a way through the pikes and muskets in hopes of 
joining the besieged, who at the same time effected a sally. Already the 
enemy began to recoil at sight of such audacity, when M. de Plelo fell 
mortally wounded ; the enemy's battalions had hemmed in the French. La 
Peyrouse succeeded, however, in effecting his retreat, and brought away his 
little band into the camp they had established under shelter of the fort. For 
a month the P'rench kept up a rivalry in courage with the defenders of 
Dantzic ; when at last they capitulated, on the 23d of June, General Munich 
had conceived such esteem for their courage that he granted them leave to 
embark with arms and baggage. A few days later King Stanislaus escaped 
alone from Dantzic, which was at length obliged to surrender on the 7th of 
July, and sought refuge in the dominions of the king of Prussia. The pope 
released the Polish gentry from the oath they had made never to entrust the 
crown to a foreigner. Augustus IIL, recognized by the mass of the nation, 
became the docile tool of Russia, while in Germany and in Italy the Austrians 
found themselves attacked simultaneously by France, Spain, and Sardinia. 

Marshal Berwick had taken the fort of Kehl in the month of December, 
1733; he had forced the lines of the Austrians at Erlingen at the commence- 
ment of the campaign of 1734, and he had just opened trenches against 
Philipsburg, when he pushed forward imprudently in a reconnoissance 
between the fires of the besiegers and besieged : a ball wounded him mortally, 
and he expired immediately, like Marshal Turenne ; he was sixty-three. The 
duke of Noailles, who at once received the marshal's baton, succeeded him in 
the command of the army by agreement with Marshal d'Asfeldt. Philips- 
burg was taken after forty-eight days' open trenches, without Prince Eugene, 
all the while within hail, making any attempt to relieve the town. The 
campaign of 1735 hung fire in Germany. It was more splendid in Italy, 
where the outset of the war had been brilliant. And, indeed, within three 
months, nearly the whole of Milaness was reduced. Cremona and Pizzighi- 



1735] FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. 207 

tone had surrendered ; but already king Charles Emmanuel was relaxing his 
efforts with the prudent selfishness customary to his house. The Sardinian 
contingents did not arrive : the Austrians had seized a passage over the Po ; 
Villars, however, was preparing to force it, when a large body of the enemy 
came down upon him. The king of Sardinia was urged to retire : " That is 
not the way to get out of this," cried the marshal, and, sword in hand, he 
charged at the head of the body-guard ; Charles Emmanuel followed his 
example ; the Austrians were driven in. 

Death, in fact, had already seized his prey ; the aged marshal had not 
time to return to France to yield up his last breath there ; he was expiring at 
Turin, when he heard of Marshal Berwick's death before Philipsburg : 
"That fellow always was lucky," said he. On the 17th of June, 1734, Villars 
died, in his turn, by a strange coincidence, in the very room in which he had 
been born, when his father was French ambassador at the court of the duke 
of Savoy. 

Some days later Marshals Broglie and Coigny defeated the Austrians 
before Parma ; the general-in-chief, M. de Mercy, had been killed on the 19th 
of September ; the prince of Wurtemberg in his turn succumbed at the battle 
of Guastalla, and yet these successes on the part of the French produced no 
serious result. Cardinal Fleury, weary of the war which he had entered upon 
with regret, disquieted too at the new complications which he foresaw in 
Europe, had already commenced negotiations ; the preliminaries were signed 
at Vienna in the month of October, 1735. 

The conditions of the treaty astonished Europe. The kingdom of 
Naples and the two Sicilies were secured to Don Carlos, who renounced 
Tuscany and the duchies of Parma and Piacenza. These three principalities 
were to form the appanage of Duke Francis of Lorraine, betrothed to the 
archduchess Maria Theresa. There it was that France was to find her share 
of the spoil ; in exchange for the dominions formed for him in Italy, Duke 
Francis ceded the duchies of Lorraine and Bar to King Stanislaus ; the latter 
formally renounced the throne of Poland, at the same time preserving the 
title of king and resuming possession of his property ; after him, Lorraine and 
the Barrois were to be united to the crown of France, as dower and heritage 
of that queen who had been but lately raised to the throne by a base intrigue, 
and who thus secured to her new country a province so often taken and 
retaken, an object of so many treaties and negotiations, and thenceforth so 
tenderly cherished by France. 

Peace reigned in Europe, and Cardinal Fleury governed France without 
rival and without opposition. He had but lately, like Richelieu — to whom, 
however, he did not care to be compared — triumphed over parliamentary 
revolt. Jealous of their ancient traditional rights, the parliament claimed to 
share with the government the care of watching over the conduct of the 
clergy. In vain had D'Aguesseau, reappointed to the chancellorship, 
exhorted the parliament to yield : he had fallen in public esteem. A hundred 
and thirty-nine members received letters under the kings seal [Icttrcs dc 



2o8 FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. [1740 

cachet), exiling them to the four quarters of France. The grand chamber 
had been spared ; the old councillors, alone remaining, enregistered purely 
and simply the declarations of the keeper of the seals. Once more the 
parliament was subdued ; it had testified its complete political impotence ; the 
iron hand of Richelieu, the perfect address of Mazarin, were no longer neces- 
sary to silence it; the prudent moderation, the reserved frigidity of Cardinal 
Fleury had sufficed for the purpose. 

It was amid this state of things that the death of the emperor Charles 
VI., on the 20th of October, 1740, occurred to throw Europe into a new fer- 
ment of discord and war. Maria Theresa, the emperor's eldest daughter, 
was twenty-three years old, beautiful, virtuous, and of a lofty and resolute 
character ; her rights to the paternal heritage had been guaranteed by all 
Europe. Europe, however, soon rose, almost in its entirety, to oppose them. 

Kept for a long while by his father in cruel captivity, always carefully 
held aloof from affairs, and, to pass the time, obliged to engage in literature 
and science, Frederick II. had ascended the throne in August, 1740, with the 
reputation of a mind cultivated, liberal and accessible to noble ideas. VoL 
taire, with whom he had become connected, had trumpeted his praises every, 
where : the first act of the new king revealed qualities of which Voltaire had 
no conception. On the 23d of December, after leaving a masked ball, he 
started post-haste for the frontier of Silesia, where he had collected thirty 
thousand men. Without preliminary notice, without declaration of war, he 
at once entered the Austrian territory, which was scantily defended by three 
thousand men and a few garrisons. Before the end of January, 1741, the 
Prussians were masters of Silesia. 

Meanwhile France, as well as the majority of the other nations, had recog- 
nized the young queen of Hungary. She had been proclaimed at Vienna on 
the 7th of November, 1740; all her father's States had sworn alliance and 
homage to her. Cardinal Fleury's intentions remained as yet vague and 
secret. Naturally and stubbornly pacific, he felt himself bound by the confir- 
mation of the Pragmatic-Sanction, lately renewed, at the time of the treaty of 
Vienna. He dreamed of revising the map of Europe, and of forming a zone 
of small States destined to protect France against the designs of Austria. 
Louis XV. pretended to nothing, demanded nothing for the price of his assist- 
ance ; but France had been united from time immemorial to Bavaria ; she was 
bound to raise the elector to the imperial throne. The French navy was 
ruined, the king had hardly twenty vessels to send to sea ; that mattered little, 
as England and Holland took no part in the contest ; Austria was not a mari- 
time power ; Spain joined with France to support the elector. A body of 
forty thousand men was put under the orders of that prince, who received the 
title of lieutenant-general of the armies of the king of France. Louis XV. 
acted only in the capacity of Bavaria's ally and auxiliary. Meanwhile Marshal 
Belle-Isle, the king's ambassador and plenipotentiary in Germany, had just 
signed a treaty with Frederick II., guaranteeing to that monarch Lower Sile- 
sia. At the same time, a second French army under the orders of Marshal 



1742] FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. 209 

Maillebois entered- Germany ; Saxony and Poland came into the coalition. 
The king of England, George II., faithful to the Pragmatic-Sanction, hurrying 
over to Hanover to raise troops there, found himself threatened by Maillebois, 
and signed a treaty of neutrality. The elector had been proclaimed, at Lintz, 
archduke of Austria : nowhere did the Franco-Bavarian army encounter any 
obstacle. The king of Prussia was occupying Moravia ; Upper and Lower 
Austria had been conquered without a blow, and by this time the forces of 
the enemy were threatening Vienna. The success of the invasion was like a 
dream, but the elector had not the wit to profit by the good fortune which 
was offered him. 

A few weeks had sufficed to crown the success ; less time sufficed to undo 
it. On flying from Vienna, Maria Theresa had sought refuge in Hungary; 
the assembly of the estates held a meeting at Presburg; there she appeared, 
dressed in mourning, holding in her arms her son, scarce six months old. 
Already she had known how to attach the magnates to her by the confidence 
she had shown them ; she held out to them her child : " I am abandoned of 
my friends," said she in Latin, a language still in use in Hungary among the 
upper classes ; " I am pursued by my enemies, attacked by my relatives ; I 
have no hope but in your fidelity and courage ; we— my son and I — look to 
you for our safety." 

The palatines scarcely gave the queen time to finish ; already the sabres 
were out of the sheaths and flashing above their heads. Count Bathyany was 
the first to shout: ^'' Morianmr pro rcge nosti'o Maria Theresa/ " The same 
shout was repeated everywhere ; Maria Theresa, restraining her tears, thanked 
her defenders with gesture and voice ; she Avas expecting a second child before 
long. "■ I kjiow not," she wrote to her mother-in-law, the duchess of Lorraine, 
" if I shall have a town left to be confined in." Hungary rose, like one man, 
to protect her sovereign against the excess of her misfortunes ; the same spirit 
spread before long through the Austrian provinces ; bodies of irregulars, 
savage and cruel, formed at all points, attacking and massacring the French 
detachments they encountered, and giving to the war a character of ferocity 
which displayed itself with special excess against Bavaria'. Count Segur, 
besieged in Lintz, was obliged to capitulate on the 26th of January, and the 
day after the elector of Bavaria had received the imperial crown at Frankfurt 
under the name of Charles VII.— February 12th, 1742 — the Austrians, under 
the orders of General Khevenhuller, obtained possession of Munich, which 
was given up to pillage. 

Meanwhile England had renounced her neutrality: the general feeling of 
the nation prevailed over the prudent and far-sighted ability of Robert Wal- 
pole ; he succumbed, after his long ministry, full of honors and riches ; the 
government had passed into warlike hands. The women of society, headed 
by the duchess of Marlborough, raised a subscription of one hundred thousand 
pounds, which they offered unsuccessfully to the haughty Maria Theresa. Par- 
liament voted more effectual aid, and English diplomacy adroitly detached 
the king of Sardinia from the allies, whom success appeared to be abandoning. 
14 



2IO FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. [1743' 

The king of Prussia had just gained at Czezlaw an important victory ; next 
day, he was negotiating with the queen of Hungary. On the nth of June 
the treaty which abandoned Silesia to Frederick II. was secretly concluded. 

Chevert still occupied Prague with six thousand sick or wounded ; the 
prince of Lorraine had invested the place, and summoned it to surrender at 
discretion. "Tell your* general," replied Chevert to the Austrian sent to par- 
ley, " that, if he will not grant me the honors of war, I will fire the four corners 
of Prague, and bury myself under its ruins." He obtained what he asked for, 
and went to rejoin Marshal Belle-Isle at Egra. People compared the retreat 
from Prague to the retreat of the Ten Thousand ; but the truth came out for 
all the fictions of flattery and national pride. A hundred thousand French- 
men had entered Germany at the outset of the war ; at the commencement of 
the year 1743 thirty-five thousand soldiers, mustered in Bavaria, were nearly 
all that remained to withstand the increasing efforts of the Austrians. 

Marshal Belle-Isle was coldly received at Paris. 

Almost at the very moment when the Austrians were occupying Prague 
and Bohemia, Cardinal Fleury was expiring at Versailles, at the age of ninety. 
He had lived too long: the trials of the last years of his life had been beyond 
the bodily and mental strength of an old man elevated for the first time to 
power at an age when it is generally seen slipping from, the hands of the most 
energetic. 

Both court and nation hurled the same reproach at Cardinal Fleury ; he 
alone prevented the king from governing and turned his attention from affairs, 
partly from jealousy and partly from the old habit acquired as a preceptor, 
who can never see a man in one who has been his pupil. When the old man 
died at last, as M. d'Argenson cruelly puts it, France turned her eyes toward 
Louis XV. 

The prudent hesitation and backwardness of Holland had at last yielded 
to the pressure of England. The States-general had sent twenty thousand 
men to join the army which George II. had just sent into Germany. It was 
only on the 15th of March, 1744, that Louis XV. formally declared war 
against the king of England and Maria Theresa, no longer as an auxiliary of 
the emperor, but in his own name and on behalf of France. Charles VII., a 
fugitive, driven from his hereditary dominions, which had been evacuated by 
Marshal Broglie, had transported to Frankfurt his ill fortune and his empty 
titles. France alone supported in Germany a quarrel the weight of which she 
had imprudently taken upon herself. 

The effort was too much for the resources ; the king's counselors felt 
that it was; the battle of Dettingen, skillfully commenced on the 27th of 
June, 1743, by Marshal Noailles, and lost by the imprudence of his nephew, 
the duke of Gramont, had completely shaken the confidence of the armies ; 
the emperor had treated with the Austrians for an armistice, establishing the 
neutrality of his troops, as belonging to the emprire. It was necessary, at 
the same time, to look out elsewhere for more effectual support. The king of 
Prussia had been resting for the last two years, a curious and an interested 



1745] FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. 



211 



spectator of the contests which were bathing Europe in blood, and which 
answered his purpose by enfeebhng his rivals. He frankly and coolly flaunted 
his selfishness. In turn the successes of the queen of Hungary were beginning- 
to disquiet him ; on the 5th of June, 1744, he signed a new treaty with 
France ; for the first time Louis XV. was about to quit Versailles and place 
himself at the head of an army. "If my country is to be devoured," said 
the king, with a levity far different from the solemn tone of Louis XIV., "it 
will be very hard on me to see it swallowed without personally doing my best 
to prevent it." 

Ypres and Menin had already surrendered after a few days' open 
trenches ; siege had just been laid to Furnes. Marshal Noailles had proposed 
to move up the king's household troops in order to make an impression upon 
the enemy. " If they must needs be marched up," replied Louis XV., " I do 
not wish to separate from my household: vcrbiivi sap." 

The news which arrived from the army of Italy was equally encouraging ; 
the prince of Conde, seconded by Chevert, had forced the passage of the 
Alps : " There will come some occasion when we shall do as well as the 
French have done," wrote Count Campo Santo, who, under Don Philip, 
commanded the Spanish detachment: "it is impossible to do better." 

Just at that moment Louis XV. was taken suddenly ill, and a few days 
later all France was in consternation ; reports flew about that his life was 
despaired of. Confronted Avith death, the king had once more felt the 
religious terrors which were constantly intermingled with the irregularity of 
his life : he had sent for the queen, and had dismissed the duchess of 
Chateauroux. On recovering his health, he found himself threatened by new 
perils, aggravated by his illness, and by the troubled state into which it had 
thrown the public mind. After having ravaged and wasted Alsace, without 
Marshals Coigny and Noailles having been able to prevent it. Prince Charles 
had, unopposed, struck again into the road toward Bohemia, which was being 
threatened by the king of Prussia. 

Louis XV. went to the siege of Friburg, which was a long and a difificult 
one. He returned to Paris on the 13th of November, to the great joy of the 
people. A few days later, Marshal Belle-Isle, while passing through Hanover 
in the character of negotiatqr, was arrested by order of George II., and 
carried to England a prisoner of war, in defiance of the law of nations and the 
protests of France. The moment was not propitious for obtaining the release 
of a marshal of France and an able general. The emperor Charles VII., 
who had but lately returned to his hereditary dominions, and recovered 
possession of his capital after fifteen months of Aiistrian occupation, died 
suddenly on the 20th of January, 1745, at forty-seven years of age. The 
face of affairs changed all at once ; the honor of France was no longer 
concerned in the struggle ; the grand-duke of Tuscany had no longer any 
competitor for the empire ; the eldest son of Charles VII. was only seventeen ; 
the queen of Hungary was disposed for peace. "The English ministry, 
which laid down the law for all because it laid down the money, and which 



212 FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. [1744 

had in its pay, all at one time, the queen of Hungary, the king of Poland and 
the king of Sardinia, considered that there was everything to lose by a treaty 
with France and everything to gain by arms. War continued, because it had 
commenced." [Voltaire.] 

The king of France henceforth maintained it almost alone by himself. 
The young elector of Bavaria had already found himself driven out of 
Munich, and forced by his exhausted subjects to demand peace of Maria 
Theresa. The election to the empire was imminent; Maximilian-Joseph 
promised his votes to the grand-duke of Tuscany; at that price he was 
re-established in his hereditary dominions. The king of Poland had rejected 
the advances of France, who offered him the title of emperor, beneath which 
Charles VII. had succumbed. Marshal Saxe.bore all the brunt of the war. 
A foreigner and a Protestant, for a long while under suspicion with Louis XV., 
and blackened in character by the French generals, Maurice of Saxony had 
won authority as well as glory by the splendor of his bravery and of his 
military genius. Order did not as yet reign in the army of Marshal Saxe. 
In 1745 the situation was grave ; the marshal was attacked with dropsy, his 
life appeared to be in danger. He nevertheless commanded his preparations 
to be made for the campaign, and when Voltaire, who was one of his friends, 
was astounded at it, " It is no question of living, but of setting out," was his 
reply. 

The victory of Fontenoy, like that of Denain, restored the courage and 
changed the situation of France. When the king of Prussia heard of his 
ally's success, he exclaimed with a grin : " This is about as useful to us as a 
battle gained on the banks of the Scamander. " His selfish absorption in his 
personal and direct interests obscured the judgment of Frederick the Great. 
He, however, did justice to Marshal Saxe : " There was a discussion the other 
day as to what battle had reflected most honor on the general commanding," 
he wrote a long while after the battle of Fontenoy : " some suggested that of 
Almanza, others that of Turin : but I suggested — and everybody finally 
agreed — that it was undoubtedly that in which the general had been at death's 
door when it was delivered." 

The fortress of Tournai surrendered on the 22d of May ; the citadel 
capitulated on the 19th of June. In the month of February, 1746, Marshal 
Saxe terminated the campaign by taking Brussels. By the ist of the previous 
September Louis XV. had returned in triumph to Paris. 

Henceforth he remained alone confronting Germany, which was neutral 
or had rallied round the restored empire. On the 13th of September, the 
grand duke of Tuscany had been proclaimed emperor at Frankfurt under the 
name of Francis I. The indomitable resolution of the queen his wife had 
triumphed ; in spite of the checks she suffered in the Low Countries, Maria 
Theresa still withstood, at all points, the pacific advances of the beUigerents. 

On the 4th of June, the king of Prussia had gained a great victory at 
Freilberg. " I have honored the bill of exchange your Majesty drew on me 
at Fontenoy," he wrote to Louis XV. A series of successful fights had 



I745J FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. 213 

opened the road to Saxony; Frederick headed thither rapidly ; on the' 18th of 
December he occupied Dresden. 

While Berlin was in gala trim to celebrate the return of her monarch in 
triumph, Europe had her eyes fixed upon the unparalleled enterprise of a 
young man, winning, courageous and frivolous as he was, attempting to recover 
by himself alone the throne of his fathers. For nearly three years past, 
Charles Edward Stuart, son of the Chevalier de St. George, had been 
awaiting in France the fulfillment of the promises and hopes which had been 
flashed before his eyes. Weary of hope deferred, he had conceived the idea 
of a bold stroke. " Why not attempt to cross in a vessel to the north of 
Scotland?" had been the question put to him by Cardinal Tencin, who had 
sometime before owed his cardinal's hat to the dethroned king of Great 
Britain. " Your presence will be enough to get you a party and an army, and 
France will be obliged to give you aid." 

Charles Edward followed this audacious counsel, (See English history.) 

The anger and severity displayed by the English Government toward 
the Jacobites were aggravated by the checks encountered upon the Conti- 
nent by the coalition. At the very moment when the duke of Cumber- 
land was defeating Charles Edward at Culloden, Antwerp was surrendering 
to Louis XV. in person : Mons, Namur and Charleroi were not long 
before they fell. Prince Charles of Lorraine was advancing to the relief 
of the besieged places ; Marshal Saxe left open to him the passage of 
the Meuse : the French camp seemed to be absorbed in pleasures ; the 
most famous actors from Paris were ordered to amuse the general and 
the soldiers. On the loth of October, in the evening, Madame Favart 
came forward on the stage: '' To-morrow," said she, "there will be no 
performance, on account of the battle : the day after, we shall have the 
honor of giving you Le Coq dit Village.'' At the same time, the marshal 
sent the following order to the columns, which were already forming on 
the road from St. Tron to Liege, near the village of Raucoux : " Whether 
the attacks succeed or not, the troops will remain in the position in 
which night finds them, in order to recommence the assault upon the 
enemy." 

The battle of October nth left the battle-field in the hands of the 
victors, the sole result of a bloody and obstinate engagement. Marshal 
Saxe went to rest himself at Paris ; the people's enthusiasm rivaled and 
endorsed the favors shown to him by the king. 

So much luck and so much glory in the Low Countries covered, in 
the eyes of France and Europe, the checks encountered by the king's 
armies in Italy. The campaign of 1745 had been very brilliant, Parma, 
Piacenza, Montferrat, nearly all Milaness, with the exception of a few- 
fortresses, were in the hands of the Spanish and French forces. The king 
of Sardinia had recourse to negotiation ; he amused the marquis of 
Argenson, at that time Louis XV,'s foreign minister, a man of honest, 
expansive, but chimerical views. At the moment when the king and 



214 FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. [1745 

the marquis believed themselves to be remodeling the map of Europe 
at their pleasure, they heard that Charles Emmanuel had resumed the 
offensive. A French corps had been surprised at Asti, on the 5th of 
March • thirty thousand Austrians marched down from the Tyrol, and 
the Spaniards evacuated Milan. A series of checks forced Marshal Maille- 
bois to effect a retreat ; the enemy's armies crossed the Var and invaded 
French territory. Marshal Belle-Isle fell back to Puget, four leagues 
from Toulon. 

The Austrians had occupied Genoa, the faithful ally of France : their 
vengefulness and their severe exactions caused them to lose the fruits 
of their victory. The resistance of Genoa was effectual ; but it cost the 
life of the duke of Boufflers, who was wounded in an engagement and 
died three days before the retreat of the Austrians, on the 6th of 
July, 1747. 

On the 19th of July, Common Sense Belle-Isle {Bon-Sens de Belle- 
Isle), as the chevalier was called at court to distinguish him from his 
brother the marshal, attacked with a considerable body of troops the 
Piedmontese intrenchments at the Assietta Pass, between the fortresses 
of Exilles and Fenestrelles ; at the same time. Marshal Belle-Isle was 
seeking a passage over the Stura Pass, and the Spanish army was attacking 
Piedmont by way of the Apennines. The engagement at the heights 
of Assietta was obstinate ; Chevalier Belle-Isle, wounded in both arms, 
threw himself bodily upon the palisades to tear them down with his 
teeth ; he was killed, and the French sustained a terrible defeat ; five 
thousand men were left on the battle-field. The campaign of Italy was 
stopped. The king of Spain, PhiHp V., enfeebled and exhausted almost 
in infancy, had died on the 9th of July, 1746. The fidelity of his 
successor, Ferdinand VI., married to a Portuguese princess, appeared 
doubtful ; he had placed at the head of his forces in Italy the marquis 
of Las Minas, with orders to preserve to Spain her only army. "The 
Spanish soldiers are of no more use to us than if they were so much 
cardboard," said the French troops. Europe was tired of the war. England 
avenged herself for her reverses upon the continent by her successes 
at sea ; the French navy, neglected systematically by Cardinal Fleury, 
did not even suffice for the protection of commerce. The Hollanders, 
who had for a long while been undecided and had at last engaged in 
the struggle against France without any declaration of war, bore, in 
1747, the burden of the hostilities. Count Lowendahl, a friend of Marshal 
Saxe's, and, like him, in the service of France, had taken Sluys and 
Sas-de-Gand ; Bergen-op-Zoom was besieged ; on the 1st of July, Marshal 
Saxe had gained, under the king's own eye, the battle of Lawfeldt. 
As in 1672, the French invasion had been the signal for a political revolu- 
tion in Holland ; the aristocratical burgessdom, which had resumed power, 
succumbed once more beneath the efforts of the popular party, directed 
by the house of Nassau and supported by England. 



1748] FRANCE.— LOUIS XV. 215 

Bergen-op-Zoom was taken and plundered on the i6th of September. 
Count Lowendahl was made a marshal of France. On the 9th of April, 
174S, the place was invested, before the thirty-five thousand Russians 
promised to England by the czarina Elizabeth had found time to make 
their appearance on the Rhine. A congress was already assembled at 
Aix-la-Chapelle to treat for peace. The Hollanders, whom the marquis 
of Argenson before his disgrace used always to caU ''the Ambassadors 
of England," took fright at the spectacle of Maestricht besieged ; from 
parleys they proceeded to the most vehement urgency ; and England 
yielded. The preliminaries of peace were signed on the 30th of April ; 
it was not long before Austria and Spain gave in their adhesion. On 
the 1 8th of October the definitive treaty was concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle. 
France generously restored all her conquests, without claiming other 
advantages beyond the assurance of the duchies of Parma and Piacenza 
to the infante Don Philip, son-in-law of Louis XV. England surrendered 
to France the island of Cape Breton and the colony of Louisbourg, 
the only territory she had preserved from her numerous expeditions 
against the French colonies and from the immense losses inflicted upon 
French commerce. The Great Frederick kept Silesia ; the king of Sardinia 
the territories already ceded by Austria. Only France had made great 
conquests ; and only she retained no increment of territory. She recognized 
the Pragmatic Sanction in favor of Austria and the Protestant succession 
in favor of George IL 

The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had a graver defect than that of 
fruitlessness ; it was not and could not be durable. England was excited, 
ambitious of that complete empire of the sea which she had begun to 
build up upon the ruins of the French navy and the decay of Holland, 
and greedy of distant conquests over colonies which the French could 
not manage to defend. In proportion as the old influence of Richelieu 
and of Louis XIV. over European policy became weaker and weaker, 
English influence, founded upon the growing power of a free country 
and a free government, went on increasing in strength. Without any 
other ally but Spain, herself wavering in her fidelity, the French remained 
exposed to the attempts of England, henceforth delivered from the phantom 
of the Stuarts. 



XIY. 

LOl I?.-THE COLONIES-THE SEM YEARS' WAR, 




E must now review briefly the history of the French 
colonies. At the outset of Louis XIV. 's personal 
^^ reign and through the persevering efforts of Colbert, 
marching in the footsteps of Cardinal Richelieu, an 
India Company had been founded for the purpose of 
developing French commerce in those distant regions, 
which had always been shrouded in a mysterious halo 
of fancied wealth and grandeur. Several times the company had 
all but perished ; it had revived under the vigorous impulse 
communicated by Law and had not succumbed at the collapse of 
his system. It gave no money to its share-holders, who derived 
their benefits only from a partial concession of the tobacco revenues, 
granted by the king to the company, but its directors lived a life of 
magnificence in the East, w^iere they were authorized to trade on 
their OAvn account. Abler and bolder than all his colleagues, Joseph 
Dupleix, member of a Gascon family and son of the comptroller-general of 
Hainault, had dreamed of other destinies than the management of a counting- 
house ; he aspired to endow France with the empire of India. Unfortunately 
a serious misunderstanding took place between him and the governor of 
Bourbon and of He de France, Bertrand Francis Mahe de la Bourdonnais, 
who, in September, 1746, at the head of a flotilla, had obliged the English 
garrison of Madras to surrender. A jealous love of power and absorption in 
political schemes induced Dupleix to violate a promise lightly given by La 
Bourdonnais in the name of France ; he arbitrarily quashed a capitulation of 
which he had not discussed the conditions. The report of this unhappy 
conflict, and the color put upon it by the representations of Dupleix, ruined 
at Paris the governor of He de France. 

On arriving at He de France, amid that colony which he had found 
exhausted, ruined, and had endowed with hospitals, arsenals, quays, and 
fortifications. La Bourdonnais learned that a new governor was already 



1774] FRANCE.— THE COLONIES. 217 

installed there. His dissensions with Dupleix had borne their fruits; he had 
been accused of having exacted too paltry a ransom from Madras, and of 
having accepted enormous presents ; the company had appointed a successor 
in his place. Driven to desperation, anxious to go and defend himself, La 
Bourdonnais set out for France with his wife and his four children ; a 
prosecution had already been commenced against him. He was captured at 
sea by an English ship, and taken a prisoner to England. The good faith of 
the conqueror of Madras was known in London ; one of the directors of the 
English company offered his fortune as security for M. de la Bourdonnais. 
Scarcely had he arrived in Paris when he was thrown into the Bastile, and for 
two y©ars kept in solitary confinement. When his innocence was at last 
acknowledged and his liberty restored to him, his health was destroyed, his 
fortune exhausted by the expenses of the trial. La Bourdonnais died before 
long, employing the last remnants of his life and of his strength in pouring 
forth his anger against Dupleix, to whom he attributed all his Avoes. 

France and England had made peace ; the English and French companies 
in India had not laid down arms. Their power, as well as the importance of 
their establishments, was as yet in equipoise. At Surat both companies had 
places of business. On the coast of Malabar, the English had Bombay and 
the French Mahe ; on the coast of Coromandel, the former held Madras and 
Fort St. George, the latter Pondicherry and Karikal. The principal factories, 
as well as the numerous little establishments which were dependencies of 
them, were defended by a certain number of European soldiers and by Sepoys, 
native soldiers in the pay of the companies. 

Dupleix espied the possibility of a new organization, which should secure 
to the French in India the preponderance, and ere long the empire even, in 
the two peninsulas. He purposed to found manufactures, utilize native 
hand-labor and develop the coasting-trade, or Ind to Ind trade, as the 
expression then was ; but he set his pretensions still higher and carried his 
views still further. He purposed to acquire for the company, and, under its 
name, for France, territories and subjects furnishing revenues and amply 
sufficing for the expenses of the commercial establishments. The moment 
was propitious ; the ancient empire of the Great Mogul tottering to its base 
was distracted by revolutions ; Dupleix reckoned without France, and without 
the incompetent or timid men who governed her. His successes scared King 
Louis XV. and his feeble ministers ; they angered and discomfited England, 
which was as yet tottering in India, and whose affairs there had for a long while 
been ill managed, but which remained ever vigorous, active, animated by the 
indomitable ardor of a free people. In India England had at last found a 
man still young and unknown, but worthy of being opposed to Dupleix. 
Clive, who had almost in boyhood entered the company's offices, turned out, 
after the turbulence of his early years, a heaven-born general, he was destined 
to continue Dupleix's work, when abandoned by France, and to found to the 
advantage of the English that European dominion in India which had been 
the governor of Pondicherry's dream. Two French corps were destroyed by 



2i8 FRANCE.— THE COLONIES. [1748 

Clive, and a third army soon shared the same fate. The report of Dupleix's 
reverses arrived in France in the month of September, 1752. 

The dismay at Versailles was great, and prevailed over the astonishment. 
There had never been any confidence in Dupleix's projects, there had been 
scarcely any belief in his conquests. 

The governor of Pondicherry had received no troops, but he had 

manao-ed to reorganize an army, and had resumed the offensive in the 

Carnatic, powerfully helped by his military lieutenant, Bussy Castelnau, his 

future son-in-law, animated by the same zeal for the greatness of France. 

Clive was ill and had just set out for England : fortune had once more 

chano-ed front. The open conferences held with Saunders, English governor 

of Madras, failed in the month of January, 1754; Dupleix wished to preserve 

the advantages he had won, Saunders refused to listen to that ; the approach 

of a French squadron was signaled. The ships appeared to be numerous. 

Dupleix was already rejoicing at the arrival of unexpected aid, when, instead 

of an officer commanding the twelve hundred soldiers from France, he saw 

the apparition of M. Godeheu, one of the directors of the company, and but 

lately his friend and correspondent. " I come to supersede you, sir," said 

the new arrival without any circumstance; "I have full powers from the 

company to treat with the English." The cabinet of London had not been 

deceived as to the importance of Dupleix in Lidia; his recall had been made 

the absolute condition of a cessation of hostilities. All the territories ceded 

by the Hindoo princes to Dupleix reverted to their former masters ; the two 

companies interdicted one another from taking any part in the interior policy 

,of India, and at the same time forbade their agents to accept from the 

Hindoo princes any charge, honor or dignity; the most perfect equality was 

re-established between the possessions and revenues of the two great 

European nations, rivals in the East as well as in Europe ; England gave up 

some petty forts, some towns of no importance, France ceded the empire of 

India. When Godeheu signed the treaty, Trichinopoli was at last on the 

point of giving in. Dupleix embarked for France with his wife and daughter, 

leaving in India, together with his life's work destroyed in a few days by the 

poltroonery of his country's government, the fortune he had acquired during 

his great enterprises, entirely sunk as it was in the service of France ; the 

revenues destined to cover his advances were seized by Godeheu. 

France seemed to comprehend what her ministers had not even an idea 
of ; Dupleix's arrival in France was a veritable triumph. It was by this time 
known that the reverses which had caused so much talk had been half 
repaired. It was by this time guessed how infinite were the resources of 
that empire of India, so lightly and mean-spiritedly abandoned to the 
English. 

He was mistaken about the justice as he had been about the discernment 
and the boldness of the French government ; not a promise was accomplished ; 
not a hope was realized ; after delay upon delay, excuse upon excuse, Dupleix 
saw his wife expire at the end of two years, worn out with suffering and 



1774] FRANCE.— THE COLONIES. 219 

driven to despair ; like her, his daughter, affianced for a long time past to 
Bussy, succumbed beneath the weight of sorrow; in vain did Duplex tire out 
the ministers with his views and his projects for India, he saw even the action 
he was about to bring against the company vetoed by order of the king. 
Persecuted by his creditors, overwhelmed with regret for the relatives and 
friends whom he had involved in his enterprises and in his ruin, Dupleix died 
at last on the nth of November, 1763, the most striking, without being the 
last or the most tragical, victim of the great French enterprises in India. 

Despite the treaty of peace, hostilities had never really ceased in India. 
Clive had returned from England ; freed henceforth from the influence, the 
intrigues and the indomitable energy of Dupleix, he had soon made himself mas- 
ter of the whole of Bengal, he had even driven the French from Chandernugger ; 
Bussy had been unable to check his successes, he avenged himself by wrest- 
ing away from the English all their agencies on the coast of Orissa, and closing 
against them the road between the Coromandel coast and Bengal. 

Meanwhile the Seven Years' War had broken out ; the whole of Europe had 
joined in the contest ; the French navy, still feeble in spite of the efforts that 
had been made to restore it, underwent serious reverses on every sea. Count 
Lally-Tolendal, descended from an Irish family which took refuge in France 
with James II., went to Count d'Argenson, still minister of war, with a propo- 
sition to go and humble in India that English power which had been 
imprudently left to grow up without hindrance. The directors of the India 
company went and asked M. d'Argenson to entrust to General Lally the 
king's troops promised for the expedition. "You are wrong," M. d'Argenson 
said to them : " I know M. de Lally, he is a friend of mine ; but he is violent, 
passionate, inflexible as to discipline ; he will not tolerate any disorder ; you 
will be setting fire to your warehouses if you send him thither." The direct- 
ors, however, insisted, and M. de Lally set out on the 2d of May, 1757, with 
four ships and a body of troops. Some young officers belonging to the great- 
est houses of France served on his staff. 

The brilliant courage and heroic ardor of M. de Lally triumphed over 
tlie first obstacles ; his recklessness, his severity, his passionateness were about 
to lose him the fruits of his victories. By his personal faults he aggravated 
his already critical position. The discord which reigned in the army as well 
as among the civil functionaries was nowhere more flagrant than between 
Lally and Bussy. The latter could not console himself for having been forced 
to leave the Deccan in the feeble hands of the marquis of Conflans. An expe- 
dition attempted against the fortress of Wandiwash, of which the English had 
obtained possession, was followed by a serious defeat ; Colonel Coote was 
master of Karikal. Little by little the French army and French power in 
India found themselves cooped within the immediate territory of Pondicherry. 
The English marched against this town. Lally shut himself up there in the 
month of March, 1760. Bussy had been made prisoner, and Coote had sent 
him to Europe. 

He held out for six weeks, in spite of famine, want of money and ever 



220 FRANCE.— THE COLONIES. [1748 

increasing dissensions. At last it became necessary to surrender; the council 
of the company called upon the general to capitulate. Lally claimed the hon- 
ors of war, but Coote would have the town at discretion; the distress was 
extreme as well as the irritation. Pondicherry was delivered up to the 
conquerors on the i6th of January, 1761 ; the fortifications and magazines 
were razed ; French power in India, long supported by the courage or ability 
of a few men, was foundering, never to rise again. 

Hatred bears bitterer fruits than is imagined even by those who provoke 
it. The animosity which M. de Lally had excited in India was everywhere 
an obstacle to the defense ; and it was destined to cost him his life and im- 
peril his honor. Scarcely had he arrived in England, ill, exhausted by 
sufferings and fatigue, followed even in his captivity by the reproaches and 
anger of his comrades in misfortune, when he heard of the outbreak of public 
opinion against him in France ; he was accused of treason ; and he obtained 
from the English cabinet permission to repair to Paris. After a delay of nine- 
teen months, the trial commenced in December, 1764, and on the 9th of May, 
at the close of the day, the valiant general, whose heroic resistance had 
astounded all India, mounted the scaffold on the Place de Greve, nor was per- 
mission granted to the few friends who remained faithful to him to accompany 
him to the place of execution ; there was only the parish-priest of St. Louis 
en rile at his side ; as apprehensions were felt of violence and insult on the 
part of the condemned, he was gagged like the lowest criminal when he reso- 
lutely mounted the fatal ladder ; he knelt without assistance and calmly 
awaited his death-blow. Voltaire's judgment, after the subsidence of passion 
and after the light thrown by subsequent events upon the state of French 
affairs in India before Lally's campaigns, is just : " It was a murder committed 
with the sword of justice." King Louis XV. and his government had lost 
India ; the rage and shame blindly excited among the nation by this disaster 
had been visited upon the head of the unhappy general who had been last 
vanquished in defending the remnants of French power. 

For a long time past the French had directed toward America their ardent 
spirit of enterprise ; in the fifteenth century, on the morrow of the discovery 
of the new world, when the indomitable genius and religious faith of Christo- 
pher Columbus had just opened a new path to inquiring minds and daring 
spirits, the Basques, the Bretons and the Normans were among the first to 
follow the road he had marked out ; their light barks and their intrepid 
navigators were soon known among the fisheries of Newfoundland and the 
Canadian coast. (See American history.) 

For a long while expeditions and attempts at French colonization had 
been directed toward Canada. James Cartier, in 1535, had taken possession 
of its coasts under the name of New France. M. de Roberval had taken 
thither colonists, agricultural and mechanical ; but the hard climate, famine 
and disease had stifled the little colony in the bud ; religious and political dis- 
turbances in the mother-country were absorbing all thoughts ; it was only in 
the reign of Henry IV., when panting France, distracted by civil discord, 



I 



1/74] FRANCE.— THE COLONIES. 221 

began to repose for the first time since more than a century, beneath a govern- 
ment just, able, and firm at the same time, that zeal for distant enterprises at 
last attracted to New France its real founder. Samuel de Champlain du 
Brouage, born in 1567, a faithful soldier of the king's so long as the war lasted, 
was unable to endure the indolence of peace. After long and perilous voyages 
he enlisted in the company which M. de Monts, gentleman of the bedcham- 
ber in ordinary to Henry IV., had just formed for the trade in furs on the 
northern coast of America; appointed viceroy of Acadia, a new territory, of 
which the imaginary limits would extend in our times from Philadelphia to 
beyond Montreal, and furnished with a commercial monopoly, M. de Monts 
set sail on the 7th of April, 1604, taking with him, Calvinist though he was, 
Catholic priests as well as Protestant pastors. After long and painful explo- 
rations in the forests and among the Indian tribes, after frequent voyages to 
France on the service of the colony, he became at last, in 1606, the first 
governor of the nascent town of Quebec. 

Never was colony founded under more pious auspices ; for some time 
past the Recollects had been zealously laboring for the conversion of unbe- 
lievers ; seconded by the Jesuits, who were before long to remain sole masters 
of the soil, they found themselves sufficiently powerful to forbid the Protest- 
ant sailors certain favorite exercises of their worship. 

In 1627, Richelieu put himself at the head of a company of a hundred 
associates, on which the king conferred the possession as well as the govern- 
ment of New France, together with the commercial monopoly and freedom 
from all taxes for fifteen years. The colonists were to be French and Cath- 
olics ; Huguenots were excluded : they alone had till then manifested any 
tendency toward emigration ; the attempts at colonization in America were 
due to their efforts. Less liberal in New France than he had lately been in 
Europe, the cardinal thus enlisted in the service of the foreigner all the adven- 
turous spirits and the bold explorers among the French Protestants, at the 
very moment when the English Puritans, driven from their country by the 
narrow and meddlesome policy of James I., were dropping anchor at the foot 
of Plymouth Rock, and were founding, in the name of religious liberty, a new 
Protestant England, the rival ere long of that New France which was Cath- 
olic and Absolutist. 

Champlain had died at Quebec on Christmas Day, 1635, after twenty- 
seven years' efforts and sufferings in the service of the nascent colony. Bold 
and enterprising, endowed with indomitable perseverance and rare practical 
faculties, an explorer of distant forests, an intrepid negotiator with the savage 
tribes, a wise and patient administrator, indulgent toward all in spite of his 
ardent devotion, Samuel de Champlain had presented the rare intermixture of 
the heroic qualities of past times with the zeal for science and the practical 
talents of modern ages. He was replaced in his government by a knight of 
Malta, M. de Montmagny. Quebec had a seminary, a hospital and a convent, 
before it possessed a population. 

The foundation of Montreal was still more exclusively religious. The 



222 FRANCE.— THE COLONIES. [7748 

accounts of the Jesuits had inflamed pious souls with a noble emulation ; a 
Montreal association was formed, under the direction of M. OHer, founder of 
St. Sulpice. The first expedition was placed under the command of a valiant 
gentleman, Paul de Maisonneuve, and of a certain Mademoiselle Mance. 

The affair of Montreal stood, like that of Quebec ; New France was 
founded in spite of the sufferings of the early colonists, thanks to their cour- 
age, their fervent enthusiasm, and the support afforded them by the religious 
zeal of their friends in Europe. The Jesuit missionaries every day extended 
their explorations, sharing with M. de la Salle the glory of the great discov- 
eries of the West. (See American history.) Everywhere, in the western 
regions of the American continent, the footsteps of the French, either trav- 
elers or missionaries, preceded the boldest adventurers. It is the glory and 
the misfortune of France to always lead the van in the march of civilization, 
without having the wit to profit by the discoveries and the sagacious boldness 
of her children. On the unknown roads which she has opened to the human 
mind and to human enterprise she has often left the fruits to be gathered by 
nations less inventive and less able than she, but more persevering and less 
perturbed by a confusion of desires and an incessant renewal of hopes. 

The treaty of Utrecht had taken out of French hands the gates of 
Canada, Acadia and Newfoundland. Canada was prospering, however ; 
during the long wars which the condition of Europe had kept up in America, 
the Canadians had suppHed the king's armies with their best soldiers. 
Returning to their homes and resuming without an effort the peaceful habits 
which characterized them, they skillfully cultivated their fields and saw their 
population increasing naturally, without any help from the mother-country. 
The governors had succeeded in adroitly counterbalancing the influence of 
the English over the Indian tribes. The Iroquois, but lately implacable foes 
of France, had accepted a position of neutrality. The English were rich, free 
and bold ; for them the transmission and the exchange of commodities were 
easy. The commercial rivalry which set in between the two nations was fatal 
to the French ; when the hour of the final struggle came, the Canadians, 
though brave, resolute, passionately attached to France and ready for any 
sacrifice, were few in number compared with their enemies. Scattered over a 
vast territory, they possessed but poor pecuniary resources, and could expect 
from the m.other-country only irregular assistance, subject to variations of 
government and fortune as well as to the chances of maritime warfare and 
engagements at sea, always perilous for the French ships, which were inferior 
in build and in number, whatever might be the courage and skill of their 
commanders. 

The capture of Louisbourg and of the island of Cape Breton by the 
English colonists, in 1745, profoundly disquieted the Canadians ; it was the 
first scene in a drama doomed to end fatally for the interests of France. 

Regretfully, and as if compelled by a remnant of national honor, Louis 
XV. adopted the resolution of defending his colonies ; he had, and the nation 
had as well, the fe*ling that the French were hopelessly weak at sea. 



1774] FRANCE.— THE COLONIES. 223 

The English nation was not divided. The ministers and the parliament, 
as well as the American colonies, were for war. " There is no hope of repose 
for our thirteen colonies, as long as the French are masters of Canada," said 
Benjamin Franklin on his arrival in London in 1754. He was already labor- 
ing, without knowing it, at that great work of American independence which 
was to be his glory and that of his generation ; the common efforts and the 
common interest of the thirteen American colonies in the war against France 
were the first step toward that great coalition which founded the United 
States of America. 

The union with the mother country was as yet close and potent. At the 
instigation of Mr. Fox, soon afterward Lord Holland, and at the time Prime 
Minister of England, parliament voted twenty-five millions for the American 
war. The bounty given to the soldiers and marines who enlisted was doubled 
by private subscription ; fifteen thousand men were thus raised to invade the 
French colonies. 

Canada and Louisiana together did not number eighty thousand inhabit- 
ants, while the population of the English colonies already amounted to one 
million two hundred thousand souls ; to the twenty-eight hundred regular 
troops sent from France the Canada militia added about four thousand men, 
less experienced but quite as determined as the most intrepid veterans of the 
campaigns in Europe. During more than twenty years the courage and devo- 
tion of the Canadians never faltered for a single day. 

The wicked deportation of four hundred and eighteen heads of families 
from Acadia excited in France the greatest and most natural emotion ; a few 
brilliant successes obtained by the marquis of Montcalm cheered up for a 
short space the hopes of the French government; but it was all in vain. 
Quebec, besieged by general Wolfe, capitulated on the i8th of September, 
1759. Both the English and the French commanders had been killed ; the 
capitulation of Montreal was signed on the 8th of September, 1760; on the 
loth of February, 1763, the peace concluded between France, Spain, and 
England completed without hope of recovery the loss of all the French 
possessions in America. Louisiana had taken no part in the war; it was not 
conquered ; France ceded it to Spain in exchange for Florida, which was 
abandoned to the English. Canada and all the islands of the St. Lawrence 
shared the same fate. Only the little islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon were 
perserved for the French fisheries. One single stipulation guaranteed to the 
Canadians the free exercise of the Catholic religion. The principal inhabit- 
ants of the colony went into exile on purpose to remain French. The weak 
hands of King Louis XV. and of his government had let slip the fairest colo- 
nies of France. Canada and Louisiana had ceased to belong to her ; yet 
attachment to France subsisted there a long while and her influence left 
numerous traces there. 

The struggle was over. King Louis XV. had lost his American colonies, 
the nascent empire of India and the settlements of Senegal. He recovered 
Guadaloupe and Martinique, but lately conquered by the English, Chander- 



224 FRANCE.— THE COLONIES. [1748 

nugger and the ruins of Pondicherry, The humiliation was deep and the 
losses were irreparable. All the fruits of the courage, of the ability and of 
the passionate devotion of the French in India and in America were falhng 
into the hands of England. Her government had committed many faults ; 
but the strong action of a free people had always managed to repair them. 
The day was coming when the haughty passions of the mother-country and 
the proud independence of her colonies would engage in that supreme 
struggle which has given to the world the United States of America. 

■ It was not only in the colonies and on the seas that the peace of Aix- 
la-Chapelle had seemed merely a truce destined to be soon broken : hostili- 
ties had never ceased in India or Canada ; English vessels scoured the world, 
capturing, in spite of treaties, French merchant-ships ; in Europe and on the 
continent all the sovereigns were silently preparing for new efforts ; only the 
government of King Louis XV., intrenched behind its disinterestedness in the 
negotiations and ignoring the fatal influences of weakness and vanity, believed 
itself henceforth beyond the reach of a fresh war. The state of the royal 
treasury, and the measures to which recourse was had to enable the State to 
make both ends meet, aggravated the dissension and disseminated discontent 
among all classes of society. Comptrollers-general came one after another, 
all armed with new expedients ; MM. de Machault, Moreau de Sechelles, de 
Moras, excited, successively, the wrath and the hatred of the people, crushed 
by imposts in peace as well as war ; the clergy refused to pay the twentieth, 
still claiming their right of giving only a free gift ; the States-districts, Lan- 
guedoc and Brittany at the head, resisted, in the name of their ancient privi- 
leges, the collection of taxes to which they had not consented ; riots went on 
multiplying : they even extended to Paris, where the government was accused 
of kidnapping children for transportation to the colonies. The people rose, 
several police-agents were massacred ; the king avoided passing through the 
capital on his way from Versailles to the camp at Campiegne : the path he 
took in the Bois de Boulogne received the name of Revolt Road. 

Decadence went on swiftly, and no wonder. At forty years of age Louis 
XV., finding every pleasure pall, indifferent to or forgetful of business from 
indolence and disgust, bored by everything and on every occasion, had come 
to depend solely on those who could still manage to amuse him. Madame de 
Pompadour had accepted this ungrateful and sometimes shameful task. Vigi- 
lant in attaching the courtiers to herself, she sowed broadcast, all around her, 
favors, pensions, profitable ofifices, endowing the gentlemen to facilitate their 
marriage, turning a deaf ear to the complaints of the people as well as to the 
protests of the States or parliaments. The court still swarmed with brave 
officers, ready to march to death at the head of the troops ; the command of 
armies henceforth depended on the favor of Madame the marchioness of 
Pompadour. 

The day had come when the fortune of war was about to show itself fatal 
to France, Marshal Saxe had died at Chambord, still young and worn out 
by excesses rather than by fatigue. War, however, was inevitable ; five 



1774] FRANCE.— THE COLONIES. 225 

months of public or private negotiation, carried on by the ambassadors or 
personal agents of the king, could not obtain from England any reparation for 
her frequent violation of the law of nations : the maritime trade of France 
was destroyed ; the vessels of the royal navy were themselves no longer safe 
at sea. On the 23d of January an embargo was laid on all English vessels in 
French ports, and war was officially proclaimed. It had existed in fact for 
two years past. 

A striking incident signalized the commencement of hostilities. Rather 
a man of pleasure and a courtier than an able soldier, Marshal Richelieu had, 
nevertheless, the good fortune to connect his name with the only successful 
event of the Seven Years' War that was destined to remain impressed upon 
the mind of posterity, namely, the capture of Port Mahon in the island of 
Minorca. 

At the same time the king's troops were occupying Corsica in the name 
of the city of Genoa, the time-honored ally of France. Mistress of half the 
Mediterranean and secure of the neutrality of Holland, France could have 
concentrated her efforts upon the sea and have maintained a elorious strus-o-le 
with England, on the sole condition of keeping peace on the continent. The 
policy was simple and the national interest palpable ; King Louis XV. and 
some of his ministers understood this ; but they allowed themselves to drift 
into forgetfulness of it. 

A proposal was made to Maria Theresa for a treaty of guarantee between 
France, Austria and Prussia ; the existing war between England and France 
was excepted from the defensive pact ; France reserved to herself the right of 
invading Hanover. The same conditions had been offered to the king of 
Prussia ; -he was not contented with them. While Maria Theresa was insist- 
ing at Paris upon obtaining an offensive as well as defensive alliance, Freder- 
ick 11. was signing with England an engagement not to permit the entrance 
into Germany of any foreign troops. " I only wish to preserve Germany 
from war," wrote the king of Prussia to Louis XV. On the ist of May, 1756, 
at Versailles, Louis XV. replied to the Anglo-Prussian treaty by his alliance 
with the empress Maria Theresa. The house of Bourbon was holding out 
the hand to the house of Austria ; the work of Henry IV. and of Richelieu, 
already weakened by an inconsistent and capricious policy, was completely 
crumbling to pieces, involving in its ruin the military fortunes of France. 

The prudent moderation of Abbe de Bernis, then in great favor with 
Madame de Pompadour and managing the negotiations with Austria, had 
removed from the treaty of Versailles the most alarming clauses. The 
empress and the king of France mutually guaranteed to one another their 
possessions in Europe, " each of the contracting parties promising the other, 
in case of need, the assistance of twenty-four thousand men." Russia and 
Saxony were soon enlisted in the same alliance ; the king of Prussia's pleas- 
antries, at one time coarse and at another biting, had offended the czarina 
Elizabeth and the elector of Saxony as well as Louis XV. and Madame de 
Pompadour. The weakest of the allies was the first to experience the 
15 



226 FRANCE.— THE COLONIES. [174S 

miseries of that war so frivolously and gratuitously entered upon, from 
covetousness, rancour or weakness, those fertile sources of the bitterest 
sorrows to humanity. 

While hostilities were thus beginning throughout Europe, while negotia- 
tions were still going on with Vienna touching the second treaty of Versailles, 
King Louis XV., as he was descending the staircase of the marble court at 
Versailles on the 5th of January, 1757, received a stab in the side from a 
knife. Withdrawing full of blood the hand he had clapped to his wound, the 
king exclaimed : " There is the man that wounded me, with his hat on ;. 
arrest him, but let no harm be done him ! " The guards were already upon 
the murderer and were torturing him pending the legal question. The king- 
had been carried away, slightly wounded by a deep puncture from a penknife. 
In the soul of Louis XV. apprehension had succeeded to the first instinctive 
and kingly impulse of courage : he feared the weapon might be poisoned, 
and hastily sent for a confessor. The crowd of courtiers was already throng- 
ing to the dauphin's. To him the king had at once given up the direction of 
affairs. 

Justice, meanwhile, had taken the wretched murderer in hand. Robert: 
Damiens was a lackey out of place, a native of Artois, of weak mind and 
sometimes appearing to be deranged. In his vague and frequently incoherent 
depositions, he appeared animated by a desire to avenge the wrongs of the 
parliament ; he burst out against the archbishop of Paris, Christopher de 
Beaumont, a virtuous prelate of narrow mind and austere character. No 
investigation could discover any conspiracy or accomplices : with less coolness, 
and fanatical resolution than Ravaillac, Damiens, like the assassin of Henry 
IV., was an isolated criminal, prompted to murder by the derangement of his. 
own mind ; he died, like Ravaillac, amid fearful tortures which were no 
longer in accord with public sentiment, and caused more horror than awe. 
France had ceased to tremble for the life of King Louis XV. 

For one instant the power of Madame de Pompadour had appeared to 
be shaken : the king, in his terror, would not see her ; M. de Machault, but 
lately her protege, had even brought her orders to quit the palace. Together 
with the salutary terrors of death, Louis XV.'s repentance soon disappeared ; 
the queen and the dauphin went back again to the modest and pious retire- 
ment in which they passed their life ; the marchioness returned in triumph to 
Versailles. MM. de Machault and D'Argenson were exiled : the latter, who 
had always been hostile to the favorite, was dismissed with extreme harshness. 
Madame de Pompadour was avenged. 

The war, meanwhile, continued : the king of Prussia, who had at first 
won a splendid victory over the Austrians in front of Prague, had been beaten 
at Kolin and forced to fall back on Saxony. Marshal d'Estrees, slowly 
occupying Westphalia, got the duke of Cumberland into a corner on the 
Weser, and defeated him at Hastenbeck. He was then superseded by 
Richelieu, who, in Germany, reaped the fruits of Marshal d'Estrees' successes ; 
the electorate of Hanover was entirely occupied ; all the towns opened their 



1/74] FRANCE.— THE COLONIES. 227 

gates ; Hesse Cassel, Brunswick, the duchies of Verden and of Bremen met 
with the same fate. The marshal levied on all the conquered countries heavy 
contributions, of which he pocketed a considerable portion. Meanwhile, the 
duke of Cumberland, who had taken refuge in the marshes at the mouth of 
the Elbe, under the protection of English vessels, was demanding to 
capitulate ; his offers were lightly accepted. On the 8th of September, 
through the agency of Count Lynar, minister of the king of Denmark, the 
duke of Cumberland and the marshal signed at the advanced posts of the 
French army the famous convention of Closter-Severn. The king's troops 
kept all the conquered country ; those of Hesse, Brunswick and Saxe-Gotha 
returned to their homes; the Hanoverians were to be cantoned in the 
neighborhood of Stade. The marshal had not taken the precaution of 
disarming them. 

Incomplete as the convention was, it nevertheless excited great emotion 
in Europe. The duke of Cumberland had lost the military reputation 
acquired at Fontenoy ; the king of Prussia remained alone on the continent, 
exposed to all the efforts of the allies ; every day fresh reverses came down 
upon him : the Russian army had invaded the Prussian provinces and beaten 
Marshal Schwald near Memel ; twenty-five thousand Swedes had just landed 
in Pomerania. Desertion prevailed among the troops of Frederick, recruited 
as they often were from among the vanquished. 

For a moment, indeed, Frederick had conceived the idea of deserting 
simultaneously from the field of battle and from life. A letter in verse to 
the marquis of Argens pointed clearly to the notion of suicide. A firmer 
purpose, before long, animated that soul, that strange mixture of heroism 
and corruption. 

Fortune, moreover, seemed to be relaxing her severities. Under the 
influence of the hereditary grand duke, a passionate admirer of Frederick II., 
the Russians had omitted to profit by their victories ; they were by this time 
wintering in Poland, which was abandoned to all their exactions. The 
Swedes had been repulsed in the island of Rugen, Marshal Richelieu received 
from Versailles orders to remain at Halberstadt, and to send re-enforcements 
to the army of the prince of Soubise ; it was for this latter that Madame de 
Pompadour was reserving the honor of crushing the Great Frederick. 

While the plunder of Hanover was serving the purpose of feeding the 
insensate extravagance of Richelieu and of the army, Frederick II. had 
entered Saxony, hurling back into Thuringia the troops of Soubise and of 
the prince of Hildburghausen. By this time the allies had endured several 
reverses ; the boldness of the king of Prussia's movements bewildered and 
disquieted ofTficers as well as soldiers. On the 3d of November the Prussian 
army was all in order of battle on the left bank of the Saalc, near Rosbach. 

Soubise hesitated to attack : being a man of honesty and sense, he took 
into account the disposition of his army, as well as the bad composition of the 
allied forces, very superior in number to the French contingent. The com- 
mand belonged to the duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen, who had no doubt of 



228 FRANCE.— THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. [1748 

success. Orders were given to turn the little Prussian army, so as to cut off 
its retreat. All at once, as the allied troops were effecting their movement to 
scale the heights, the king of Prussia, suddenly changing front by one of 
those rapid evolutions to which he had accustomed his men, unexpectedly 
attacked the French in flank, without giving them time to form in order of 
battle. The batteries placed on the hills were at the same time unmasked 
and mowed down the infantry. The German troops at once broke up. 
Soubise sought to restore the battle by cavalry charges, but he was crushed in 
his turn. The rout became general ; the French did not rally till they 
reached Erfurt ; they had left eight thousand prisoners and three thousand 
dead on the field. 

The news of the defeat at Rosbach came bursting on France like a clap 
of thunder ; Frederick II. had renovated affairs and spirits in Germany ; the 
day after Rosbach, he led his troops into Silesia against Prince Charles of 
Lorraine, who had just beaten the duke of Bevern ; the king of Prussia's 
lieutenants were displeased and disquieted at such audacity. He assembled a 
council of war, and then, when he had expounded his plans, " Farewell, 
gentlemen," said he, " we shall soon have beaten the enemy or we shall have 
looked on one another for the last time." On the 3d of December the 
Austrians were beaten at Lissa as the French had been at Rosbach, and 
Frederick II. became the national hero of Germany ; the Protestant powers, 
but lately engaged, to their sorrow, against him, made up to the conqueror : 
admiration for him permeated even the French army. 

The counsels of Abbe de Bernis had for some time past been pacific ; 
from a court-abbe, elegant and glib, he had become, on the 25th of June, 
minister of foreign affairs. But Madame de Pompadour remained faithful to 
the empress. In the month of January, 1758, Count Clermont was appointed 
general-in-chief of the army of Germany. In disregard of the convention of 
Closter-Severn, the Hanoverian troops had just taken the field again under 
the orders of the grand duke Ferdinand of Brunswick : he had already 
recovered possession of the districts of Luneberg, Zell, a part of Brunswick 
and of Bremen. In England, Mr. Pitt, afterward Lord Chatham, had again 
come into office ; the king of Prussia could henceforth rely upon the firmest 
support from Great Britain. 

He had need of it. A fresh invasion of Russians, aided by the savage 
hordes of the Zaporoguian Cossacks, was devastating Prussia ; the sanguinary 
battle of Zorndorf, forcing them to fall back on Poland, permitted Frederick 
to hurry into Saxony, Avhich was attacked by the Austrians. General Daun 
surprised and defeated him at Hochkirch ; in spite of his inflexible resolution, 
the king of Prussia was obliged to abandon Saxony. His ally and rival, 
Ferdinand of Brunswick, had just beaten Count Clermont at Crevelt. 

The new commander-in-chief of the king's armies, prince of the blood, 
brother of the late Monsieur le Due, abbot commendatory of St. Germain-des- 
Pres, "general of the Benedictines," as the soldiers said, had brought into 
Germany, together with the favor of Madame de Pompadour, upright inten- 



1774] FRANCE.— THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 229 

tions, a sincere desire to restore discipline, and some great allusions about 
himself. Defeated at Crevelt, he was superseded by the marquis of Contades. 
The army murmured ; they had no confidence in their leaders. At Versailles, 
Abbe de Bernis, who had lately become a cardinal, paid by his disgrace for 
the persistency he had shown in advising peace. 

Madame de Pompadour had just procured for herself a support in her 
obstinate bellicosity : Bernis was superseded in the ministry of foreign affairs 
by Count Stainville, who was created duke of Choiseul. After the death of 
Marshal BelleJsle he exchanged the office for that of minister of war ; with 
it he combined the ministry of the marine. The foreign affairs were 
entrusted to the duke of Praslin, his cousin. The power rested almost 
entirely in the hands of the duke of Choiseul. Of high birth, clever, bold, 
ambitious, he had but lately aspired to couple the splendor of successes in 
the fashionable world with the serious preoccupations of politics : his 
marriage with Mdlle. Crozat, a wealthy heiress, amiable and very much 
smitten with him, had strengthened his position. 

A new and secret treaty had just riveted the alliance between France 
and Austria. M. de Choiseul was at the same time dreaming of attackine 
England in her own very home, thus dealing her the most formidable of 
blows. The preparations were considerable : M. de Soubise was recalled from 
Germany to direct the army of invasion. He was to be seconded in his 
command by the duke of Aiguillon, to whom, rightly or wrongly, was 
attributed the honor of having repulsed in the preceding year an attempt of 
the English at a descent upon the coasts of Brittany. The expedition was 
ready, there was nothing to wait for save the moment to go out of port, but 
Admiral Hawke was cruising before Brest ; it was only in the month of 
November, 1759, that the marquis of Conflans, who commanded the fleet, 
could put to sea with twenty-one vessels. Finding himself at once pursued 
by the English squadron, he sought shelter in the difificult channels at the 
mouth of the Vilaine. The English dashed in after him. A partial engage- 
ment, which ensued, was unfavorable ; and the commander of the French 
rear guard, M. St. Andre du Verger, allowed himself to be knocked to pieces 
by the enemy's guns in order to cover the retreat. The admiral ran ashore 
in the bay of Le Croisic and burnt his own vessel ; seven ships remained 
blockaded in the Vilaine. 

The commencement of the campaign of 1759 had been brilliant in 
Germany : the duke of Broglie had successfully repulsed the attack made by 
Ferdinand of Brunswick on his positions at Bergen ; the prince had been 
obliged to retire. The two armies, united under M. de Contades, invaded 
Hesse and moved upon the Weser; they were occupying Minden when Duke 
Ferdinand threw himself upon them on the ist of August. The action of 
the two French generals was badly combined and the rout was complete. 

Maria Theresa, however, was in no hurry to enter into negotiations ; her 
enemy seemed to be bending at last beneath the weight of the double 
Austrian and Russian attack. At one time Frederick had thought that he 



230 FRANCE.— THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. [174S 

saw all Germany rallying round him ; now beaten and cantoned in Saxony, 
with the Austrians in front of him, during the winter of 1760, he was every- 
where seeking alliances and finding himself everywhere rejected : " I have 
but two aUies left," he would say, " valor and preseverance." Repeated 
victories rained at the sword's point, by dint of boldness and in the extremity 
of peril could not even protect Berlin. The capital of Prussia found itself 
constrained to open its gates to the enemy, on the sole condition that the 
reo-iments of Cossacks should not pass the line of enclosure. When the 
reo-ular troops withdrew, the generals had not been able to prevent the city 
from beino- pillaged. The heroic efforts of the king of Prussia ended merely 
in preserving to him a foothold in Saxony. The Russians occupied Poland. 

Marshal Broglie, on becoming general-in-chief of the French army, had 
succeeded in holding his own in Hesse; he frequently made Hanover 
anxious. To turn his attention elsewhere and in hopes of deciding the 
French to quit Germany, the hereditary prince of Brunswick attempted a 
diversion on the Lower Rhine ; he laid siege to Wesel while the English 
were preparing for a descent at Antwerp. Marshal Broglie detached M. de 
Castries to protect the city. The French corps had just arrived ; it was- 
bivouacking. On the night between the 15th and i6th of October, 
Chevalier d'Assas, captain in the regiment of Auvergne, was sent to 
reconnoiter. He had advanced some distance from his men and happened to 
stumble upon a large force of the enemy. The prince of Brunswick was 
preparing to attack. All the muskets covered the young captain : " Stir, 
and thou'rt a dead man," muttered threatening voices. Without replying, 
M. d'Assas collected all his strength and shouted : " Auvergne ! Here are the 
foe!" At the same instant he fell pierced by twenty balls. [Accounts 
differ : but this is the tradition of the Assas family.] The action thus begun 
was a glorious one. The hereditary prince Was obliged to abandon the siege 
of Wesel and to re-cross the Rhine. The French divisions maintained their 
positions. 

The war went on as bloodily as monotonously and fruitlessly, but the 
face of Europe had lately altered. The old king George H., who died on 
the 25th of September, 1760, had been succeeded on the throne of England 
by his grandson, George HI., aged twenty-two, the first really native 
sovereign who had been called to reign over England since the fall of the 
Stuarts. Pitt still reigned over parliament and over England, governing a 
free country sovereign-masterlike. His haughty prejudice against France 
still ruled all the decisions of the English government, but Lord Bute, the 
young monarch's adviser, was already whispering pacific counsels destined ere 
long to bear fruit. Pitt's dominion was tottering when the first overtures of 
peace arrived in London. The duke of Choiseul proposed a congress. He 
at the same time negotiated directly with England, and seemed to be resigned 
to the most humiliating concessions, when a new actor came upon the scene 
of negotiation ; France no longer stood isolated face to face with triumphant 
England. The younger branch of the house of Bourbon cast into the scale 



1774] FRANCE.— THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 231 

the weight of its two crowns and the resources of its navy ; and at the 
moment when Mr. Pitt was haughtily rejecting the modest ultimatum of the 
French minister, the treaty, known by the name of Family Pact, was signed 
at Paris (August 15th, 1761), between France and the young king of Spain, 
Charles III. 

Never had closer alliance been concluded between the two courts, even 
at the time when Louis XIV. placed his grandson upon the throne of Spain. 
It was that intimate union between all the branches of the house of Bourbon 
which had but lately been the great king's conception, and which had cost 
him so many efforts and so much blood ; for the first time it was becoming 
favorable to France ; the noble and patriotic idea of M. de Choiseul found an 
echo in the soul of the king of Spain ; the French navy, ruined and 
humiliated, the French colonies, threatened and all but lost, found 
faithful support in the forces of Spain, recruited as they were by a long 
peace. The king of the two Sicilies and the infant duke of Parma entered 
into the offensive and defensive alliance, but it was not open to any other 
power in Europe to be admitted to this family union, cemented by common 
interests more potent and more durable than the transitory combinations of 
policy. In all the ports of Spain ships were preparing to put to sea. Charles 
III. had undertaken to declare war against the English if peace were not 
concluded before the ist of May, 1762. France promised in that case to cede 
to him the island of Minorca. 

Such efforts, however, were not destined to be attended with success ; 
before the year had rolled by, Cuba was in the hands of the English, the 
Philippines were ravaged and the galleons laden with Spanish gold captured 
by British ships. The unhappy fate of France had involved her generous 
ally. The campaign attempted against Portugal, always hand-in-hand with 
England, had not been attended Avith any result. Martinique had shared the 
lot of Guadaloupe, lately conquered by the English after a heroic resistance. 
Canada and India had at last succumbed. War dragged its slow length along 
in Germany. The brief elevation of the young czar Peter III., a passionate 
admirer of the Great Frederick, had delivered the king of Prussia from a 
dangerous enemy, and promised to give him an ally equally trusty and potent. 
France was exhausted, Spain discontented and angry ; negotiations recom- 
menced, on what disastrous conditions for the French colonies in both 
hemispheres has already been remarked : in Germany the places and districts 
occupied by France were to be restored ; Lord Bute, like his great rival, 
required the destruction of the port of Dunkerque. 

The preliminaries of peace had been already signed at Fontaineblcau 
on the 3d of November, 1762; it was received, not without ill-humor on 
the part of England, but with a secret feeling of relief; the burdens 
which weighed upon the country had been increasing every year. 

M. de Choiseul submitted in despair to the consequences of the long- 
continued errors committed by the government of Louis XV. The king 
was a better judge of his weakness and of the general exhaustion. "The 



232 FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. [1748 

peace we have just made is neither a good one, nor a glorious one ; 
nobody sees that better than I," he said in his private correspondence; 
"but under such unhappy circumstances, it could not be better, and I 
answer for it that if we had continued the war, we should have made 
a still worse one next year." All the patriotic courage and zeal of 
the duke of Choiseul, all the tardy impulse springing from the nation's 
anxieties could not suffice even to palliate the consequences of so many 
years' ignorance, feebleness and incapacity in succession. 

Prussia and Austria henceforth were left to confront one another, 
the only actors really interested in the original struggle, the last to quit 
the battle-field on to which they had dragged their allies. By an unex- 
pected turn of luck, Frederick II. had for a moment seen Russia becoming 
his ally ; a fresh blow came to wrest from him this powerful support. 
The czarina Catherine II., princess of Anhalt-Zerbst and wife of the czar 
Peter III., having been proclaimed empress, inaugurated a new policy, 
equally bold and astute, having for its sole aim unscrupulously and 
shamelessly pursued the aggrandisement and consolidation of the imperial 
power : Russia became neutral in the strife between Prussia and Austria. 
The two sovereigns, left without allies and with their dominions drained 
of men and money, agreed to a mutual exchange of their conquests ; 
the boundaries of their territories once more became as they had been 
before the Seven Years' War. England alone came triumphant out of 
the strife. She had won India forever ; and for some years at least, 
civilized America, almost in its entirety, obeyed her laws. 

The position of France abroad, at the end of the Seven Years' War, 
was as painful as it was humiliating ; her position at home was still 
more serious and the deep-lying source of all the reverses which had 
come to overwhelm the French. Slowly lessened by the faults and 
misfortunes of King Louis XIV.'s later years, the kingly authority, which 
had fallen, under Louis XV., into hands as feeble as they were corrupt, 
was ceasing to inspire the nation with the respect necessary for the 
working of personal power; public opinion was no longer content to 
accuse the favorite and the ministers ; it was beginning to make the 
king responsible for the evils suffered and apprehended. In default of 
good government the people are often satisfied with glory. This conso- 
lation, to which the French nation had but lately been accustomed, 
failed it all at once ; mental irritation, for a long time silently brooding, 
cantoned in the writings of philosophers and in the quatrains of rhyme- 
sters, was beginning to spread and show itself among the nation ; it 
sought throughout the State an object for its wrath : the powerful society 
of the Jesuits was the first to bear all the brunt of it. 

A French Jesuit, Father Lavalette, had founded a commercial house 
at Martinique. Ruined by the war, he had become bankrupt to the 
extent of three millions ; the order having refused to pay, it was condemned 
by the parliament to do so. The responsibility was declared to extend 



1774] FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. 233 

to all the members of the Institute, and public opinion triumphed over 
the condemnation with a " quasi-indecent " joy, says the advocate Barbier. 
Nor was it content with this legitimate satisfaction. One of the courts 
which had until lately been most devoted to the Society of Jesus had 
just set an example of severity. In 1759, the Jesuits had been driven 
from Portugal by the marquis of Pombal, King Joseph I.'s all-powerful 
minister ; their goods had been confiscated, and their principal, Malagrida, 
handed over to the Inquisition, had just been burnt as a heretic (September 
20th, 1 761). 

In 1767, the king of Spain, Charles III., less moderate than the 
government of Eouis XV., expelled with violence all the members of 
the Society of Jesus from his territory, thus exciting the parliament of 
Paris to fresh severities against the French Jesuits, and, on the 20th of 
July, 1773, the court of Rome itself, yielding at last to pressure from 
nearly all the sovereigns of Europe, solemnly pronounced the dissolution 
of the order. The last houses still offering shelter to the Jesuits were 
closed ; the general, Ricci, was imprisoned at the castle of St. Angelo, 
and the Society of Jesus, which had been so powerful for nearly three 
centuries, took refuge in certain distant lands, seeking in oblivion and 
silence fresh strength for the struggle which it was one day to renew. 

The financial embarrassments of the State were growing more serious 
every day : to the debts left by the Seven Years' War were added the 
new wants developed by the necessities of commerce and by the progress 
of civilization. The refusal of several of the provincial parliaments to 
register the edicts promulgated by the crown ended 'in the arrest of 
five of the members of the Parliament of Rennes ; at their head was 
the attorney-general, M. de la Chalotais, author of a very remarkable 
paper against the Jesuits. It was necessary to form at St. Malo a Kings 
Chamber to try the accused. M. de Calonne, an ambitious young 
man, the declared foe of M. de la Chalotais, was appointed attorney- 
general on the commission. He pretended to have discovered grave facts 
against the accused ; he was suspected of having invented them. Public 
feeling was at its height; the magistrates loudly proclaimed the theory 
of Classes, according to which all the parliaments of France, responsible 
one for another, formed in reality but one body, distributed by delega- 
tion throughout the principal towns of the realm. 

Under the administration of the duke of Duras, the agitation subsided in 
Brittany ; the magistrates who had resigned resumed their seats ; M. de la 
Chalotais and his son, M. de Caradeuc, alone remained excluded by order of 
the king. The restored parliament immediately made a claim-on their behalf, 
accompanying the request with a formal accusation against the duke of 
Aiguillon. The States supported the parliament. A royal ordinance forbade 
any proceedings against the duke of Aiguillon, and enjoined silence on^the 
parties. Parliament having persisted, and declaring that the accusations 
against the duke of Aiguillon attached {cntachaient) his honor, Louis XV., 



234 FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. [1748 

egged on by the chancellor, M. de Maupeou, an ambitious, bold, bad man, 
repaired in person to the office and had all the papers relating to the proced- 
ure removed before his eyes. 

King Louis XV. had taken a fresh step in the shameful irregularity of 
his life; on the 15th of April, 1764, Madame de Pompadour had died, at the 
age of forty-two, of heart-disease. Less clever, less ambitious, but more potent 
than Madame de Pompadour over the faded passions of a monarch aged 
before his time, the new favorite, Madame Dubarry, made the least scrupu- 
lous blush at the lowness of her origin and the irregularity of her life. It was, 
nevertheless, in her circle that the plot was formed against the duke of Choi- 
seul. Bold, ambitious, restless, presumptuous sometimes in his views and his 
hopes, the minister had his heart too nearly in the right place and too proper 
a spirit to submit to either the yoke of Madame Dubarry or that of the shame- 
less courtiers who made use of her influence. He was dismissed on the 24th 
of December, 1770, and the power passed into the hands of Chancellor 
Maupeou, the new comptroller-general, Abbe Terray, and the duke of 
Aiguillon. 

With M. de Choiseul disappeared the sturdiest prop of the parliaments. 
In vain had the king ordered the magistrates to resume their functions and 
administer justice. Madame Dubarry, on a hint from her able advisers, had 
caused to be placed in her apartments a fine portrait of Charles I., by Van 
Dyck. " Fra7zce," she was always reiterating to the king with vulgar famil- 
iarity, " France, thy parliament will cut off t/iy head too ! " 

The ferment caused by this measure subsided without having reached the 
mass of the nation ; the majority of the princes made it up with the court, 
the dispossessed magistrates returned one after another to Paris, astonished 
and mortified to see justice administered without them and advocates plead- 
ing before the Maupeou parliament. The chancellor had triumphed and 
remained master : all the old jurisdictions were broken up, public opinion was 
already forgetting them ; it was occupied with a question more important still 
than the administration of justice. The ever increasing disorder in the 
finances was no longer checked by the enregistering of edicts ; the comp- 
troller-general. Abbe Terray, had recourse shamelessly to every expedient of 
a bold imagination to fill the royal treasury ; it was necessary to satisfy the 
ruinous demands of Madame Dubarry and of the depraved courtiers who 
thronged about her. Successive bad harvests and the high price of bread 
still further aggravated the position. It was known that the king had a taste 
for private speculation ; he was accused of trading in grain and of buying up 
the stores required for feeding the people. The odious rumor of this famine- 
pact, as the bitter saying was, soon spread among the mob. Before its fall, 
the parliament of Rouen had audaciously given expression to these dark accu- 
sations ; it had ordered proceedings to be taken against the monopolists. A 
royal injunction put a veto upon the prosecutians. Contempt grew more and 
more profound ; the king and Madame Dubarry, by their shameful lives, 
Maupeou and Abb6 Terray, by destroying the last bulwarks of the public liber- 



1774] FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. 



= 03 



ties, were digging with their own hands the abyss in which the old French 
mona.rchy was about to be soon engulfed. 

In the mean while, the dauphin died at the age of thirty-six, on the 20th 
of December, 1765, profoundly regretted by the bulk of the nation, who knew 
his virtues without troubling themselves, like the court and the philosophers, 
about the stiffness of his manners and his complete devotion to the cause of 
the clergy. The new dauphin, who would one day be Louis XVI., was still a 
child : the king had him brought into his closet. " Poor France ! " he said 
sadly, " a king of fifty-five and a dauphin of eleven ! " The dauphiness and 
Queen Mary Leczinska soon followed the dauphin to the tomb (1767, 1768). 
The king, thus left alone, and scared by the repeated deaths around him, 
appeared for awhile to be drawn closer to his daughters, for whom he had 
always retained some sort of affection, a mixture of weakness and habit. One 
of them, Madame Louise, who was deeply pious, left him to enter the convent 
of the Carmelites ; he often went to see her, and granted her all the favors 
she asked. But by this time Madame Dubarry had become all powerful ; to 
secure to her the honors of presentation at court the king personally solicited 
the ladies with whom he was intimate in order to get them to support his 
favorite on this new stage ; when the youthful Marie Antoinette, archduchess 
of Austria and daughter of Maria Theresa, whose marriage the duke of Choi- 
seul had negotiated, arrived in France, in 1770, to espouse the dauphin, 
Madame Dubarry appeared alone with the royal family at the banquet given 
at La Muette on the occasion of the marriage. Madame Dubarry was to 
reign as much as Louis XV. 

Before his fall the duke of Choiseul had made a last effort to revive abroad 
that fortune of France which he saw sinking at home without his being able 
to apply any effective remedy. He had vainly attempted to give colonies 
once more to France by founding in French Guiana settlements which had been 
unsuccessfully attempted by a Rouennese company as early as 1634. The 
enterprise was badly managed ; the numerous colonists, of very diverse 
origin and worth, were cast without resources upon a territory as unhealthy as 
fertile. No preparations had been made to receive them ; the majority died 
of disease and want. An attempt made about the same epoch at St. Lucie 
was attended with the same result. The great ardor and the rare aptitude 
for distant enterprises which had so often manifested themselves in France 
from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century seemed to be henceforth extin- 
guished. Only the colonies of the Antilles, which had escaped from the mis- 
fortunes of war, and were by this time recovered from their disasters, offered 
any encouragement to the patriotic efforst of the duke of Choiseul. He had 
been more fortunate in Europe than in the colonies. 

Corsica, whose independence had been gloriously but fruitlessly defended 
by Pascal Paoli, was to be the last conquest of the old French monarchy. 
Great or little, magnificent or insignificant, from Richelieu to the duke of 
Choiseul, France had managed to presen/e her territorial acquisitions; in 
America and in Asia, Louis XV. had shamefully lost Canatla and the Indies ; 



236 FRANCE.— HOME ADMINISTRATION. [1748 

in Europe, the diplomacy of his ministers had given to the kingdom Lorraine 
and Corsica. The political annihilation of Louis XV. in Europe had been 
completed by the dismissal of the duke of Choiseul. 

France did not do anything and could not do anything ; the king's secret 
negotiators, as well as the minister of foreign affairs, had been tricked by the 
allied powers. "Ah! if Choiseul had been here!" exclaimed King Louis 
XV., it is said, when he heard of the partition of Poland. The duke of Choi- 
seul would no doubt have been more clear-sighted and better informed than 
the duke of Aiguillon, but his policy could have done no good. Frederick 11. 
knew that. 

The partition of Poland was barely accomplished, and already King 
Louis XV., for a moment roused by the audacious aggression of the German 
courts, had sunk back into the shameful lethargy of his life. When Madame 
Louise, the pious Carmelite of St. Denis, succeeded in awakening in her father's 
soul a gleam of religious terror, the courtiers in charge of the royal pleasures 
redoubled their efforts to distract the king from thoughts so perilous for their 
own fortunes. Louis XV., fluctuating between remorse and depravity, ruled 
by Madame Dubarry, bound hand and foot to the triumvirate of Chancellor 
Maupeou, Abbe Terray and the duke of Aiguillon, who were consuming 
between them in his name the last remnants of absolute power, fell suddenly 
ill of small-pox. The princesses, his daughters, had never had that terrible 
disease, the scourge and terror of all classes of society, yet they bravely shut 
themselves up with the king, lavishing their attentions upon him to the last 
gasp. Death, triumphant, had vanquished the favorite : Madame Dubarry 
was sent away as soon as the nature of the malady had declared itself. The 
king charged his grand almoner to ask pardon of the courtiers for the scandal 
he had caused them. 

Louis XV. died on the loth of May, 1774, in his sixty-fourth year, after 
reigning fifty-nine years, despised by the people who had not so long ago 
given him the name of Well-beloved, and whose attachment he had worn out 
by his cold indifference about affairs and the national interests as much as by 
the irregularities of his life. With him died the old French monarchy, that 
proud power which had sometimes ruled Europe while always holding a great 
position therein. Henceforth France was marching toward the unknown, 
tossed about as she was by divers movements, which were mostly hostile to 
the old state of things, blindly and confusedly as yet, but, under the direction 
of masters as inexperienced as they were daring, full of frequently noble 
though nearly always extravagant and reckless hopes, all founded on a 
thorough reconstruction of the bases of society and of its ancient props. 

Nowhere and at no epoch had literature shone with so vivid a luster as 
in the reign of Louis XIV.; never has it been in a greater degree the 
occupation and charm of mankind, never has it left nobler and rarer models 
behind it for the admiration and imitation of the coming race : the writers 
of Louis XV. 's age, for all their brilliancy and all their fertility, themselves 
felt their inferiority in respect of their predecessors. Voltaire confessed as 



1774] FRANCE.— LITERATURE. 237 

much with a modesty which was by no means familiar to him. Inimitable in 
their genius, Corneille, Bossuet, Pascal, Moliere, left their imprint upon the 
generation that came after them ; it had judgment enough to set them by 
acclamation in the ranks of the classics ; in their case, greatness displaced 
time. Voltaire took Racine for model ; La Motte imagined that he could 
imitate La Fontaine. The illustrious company of great minds which sur- 
rounded the throne of Louis XIV. and had so much to do with the lasting 
splendor of his reign had no reason to complain of ingratitude on the part of 
its successors ; but, from the pedestal to which they raised it, it exercised no 
potent influence upon new thought and new passions. 

Grandeur is the distinctive characteristic of Montesquieu's ideas as it is 
of the seventeenth century altogether. In 1721, when he still had his seat on 
the fleurs-de-lis, he had published his Lettrcs persancs, an imaginary trip of 
two exiled Parsees, freely criticizing Paris and France. The book appeared 
under the regency, and bears the imprint of it in the licentiousness of the 
descriptions and the witty irreverence of the criticisms. Sometimes, however, 
the future gravity of Montesquieu's genius reveals itself amid the shrewd or 
biting judgments. 

The success of the Lcttres pcrsanes was great ; Montesquieu had said 
what many people thought without daring to express it ; the doubt which 
was nascent in his mind, and which he could only withstand by an effort of 
will, the excessive freedom of the tone and of the style scared the authori- 
ties, however ; when he wanted to get into the French Academy, in the place 
of M. de Sacy, Cardinal Fleury opposed it formally. It was only on the 24th 
of January, 1728, that Montesquieu, recently elected, delivered his reception 
speech. 

Montesquieu thus performed the prelude to the great work of his life .- 
he had been working for twenty years at the Espi'it des lois, when he pub- 
lished it in 1748. " In the course of twenty years," he says, " I saw my work 
begin, grow, progress and end." He had placed as the motto to his book 
this Latin phrase, which at first excited the curiosity of readers : Prolcni sine 
viatre creatam {Offspring begotten zvithoiit a mother). " Young man," said 
Montesquieu, by this time advanced in years, to M. Suard (afterward perpet- 
ual secretary to the French Academy), " young man, when a notable book is 
written, genius is its father and liberty its mother ; that is why I wrote upon 
the title-pagie of my work : Prolem sine niatre creatam. 

It was liberty at the same time as justice that Montesquieu sought and 
claimed in his profound researches into the laws which have from time imme- 
morial governed mankind ; that new instinctive idea of natural rights, those 
new yearnings which were beginning to dawn in all hearts, remained as yet, 
for the most part, upon the surface of their minds and of their lives ; what 
was demanded at that time in France was liberty to speak and write rather 
than to act and govern. Montesquieu, on the contrary, went to the bottom 
of things, and, despite the natural moderation of his mind, he propounded 
theories so perilous for absolute power that he dared not have his book 



238 FRANCE.— LITERATURE. [1748 

printed at Paris, and brought it out in Geneva ; its success was immense : 
before his death, Montesquieu saw twenty-one French editions pubHshed and 
translations in all the languages of Europe. " Mankind had lost its title- 
deeds," says Voltaire: "Montesquieu recovered and restored them." 

The intense labor, the immense courses of reading, to which Montes- 
quieu had devoted himself, had exhausted his strength ; he died on the loth 
of February, 1755, at the age of sixty-six, at the beginning of the reign of the 
philosophers, whose way he had prepared before them without having ever 
belonged to their number. Diderot alone followed his bier. Fontenelle, 
nearly a hundred years old, was soon to follow him to the tomb. 

Born at Rouen in February, 1657, and nephew of Corneille on the 
mother's side, Fontenelle did not receive from nature any of the unequal and 
sublime endowments which have fixed the dramatic crown forever upon the 
forehead of Corneille , but he inherited the wit and bel esprit which the 
great tragedian hid beneath the splendors of his genius. When, at forty 
years of age, he became perpetual secretary to the Academy of Sciences, he 
had already written his book on the Pluralite des Mondes, the first attempt at 
that popularization of science which has spread so since then. He wrote for 
society and not for scholars, of whose labors and discoveries he gave an 
account to society. His extracts from the labors of the Academy of Science, 
and his eulogies of the Academicians are models of lucidness under an 
ingenious and subtle form, rendered simple and strong by dint of wit. 

So much cool serenity and so much taste for noble intellectual works 
prolonged the existence of Fontenelle beyond the ordinary limits ; he was 
ninety-nine and not yet weary of life : '' If I might but reach the strawberry- 
season once more ! " he had said. He died at Paris on the 9th of January, 
1759' with him disappeared what remained of the spirit and traditions of 
Louis XIV. 's reign. Montesquieu and Fontenelle were the last links which 
united the seventeenth century to the new era. The flood of free-thinking 
had spared Montesquieu and Fontenelle ; it was about to carry away Voltaire 
almost as far as Diderot. 

Born at Paris on the 21st of November, 1694, Francois Marie Arouet de 
Voltaire was sent to the college of Louis-le-Grand, which at that time 
belonged to the Jesuits. As early as then little Arouet, who was weak and 
in delicate health, but withal of a very lively intelligence, displayed a freedom 
of thought and a tendency to irreverence which already disquieted and 
angered his masters. Father Lejay jumped from his chair and took the boy 
by the collar, exclaiming, " Wretch, thou wilt one of these days raise the 
standard of Deism in France ! " Father Pallou, his confessor, accustomed to 
read tHe heart, said as he shook his head, " This child is devoured with a 
thirst for celebrity." Under a despotic government, this awkward disposition 
must necessarily lead to painful consequences ; it was within the precincts of 
the Bastile that young Arouet wrote the first part of the poem called La 
Henriade, under the title of La Ligue ; when he at last obtained his release in 
April, 1 718, he at the same time received orders to reside at Chatenay, where 



1774] FRANCE.— LITERATURE. 239 

his father had a country house. It was on coming out of the Bastile that 
the poet took, from a small family-estate, that name of Voltaire which he was 
to render so famous. 

The players were at that time rehearsing the tragedy of CEdi'pc, which 
was performed on the i8th of November, 171 8, with great success. 
The daring flights of philosophy introduced by the poet into this pro- 
foundly and terribly religious subject excited the enthusiasm of the 
ro2it's ; Voltaire was well received by the regent, who granted him an 
honorarium. " Monseigneur," said Voltaire, " I should consider it very 
kind if his Majesty would be pleased to provide henceforth for my 
board, but I beseech your Highness to provide no more for my lod^-ino-." 
Voltaire's acts of imprudence were destined more than once to force 
him into leaving Paris; he all his life preserved such a horror of prison 
that it made him commit more than one platitude. " I have a mortal 
aversion for priso-n," he wrote in 1734; once more, however, he was to be an 
inrpate of the Bastile. 

After another visit to the Bastile, he passed three years in England, 
engaged in learning English and finishing La Hcnriade, which he published by 
subscription in 1727. Touched by the favor shown by EngHsh society to the 
author and the poem, he dedicated to the queen of England his new work, 
which was entirely consecrated to the glory of France , three successive 
editions were disposed of in less than three weeks. Lord Bolingbroke, 
having returned to England and been restored to favor, did potent service to 
his old friend, who lived in the midst of that literary society in which Pope 
and Swift held sway. When, in the month of March, 1729, Voltaire at last 
obtained permission to revisit France, he had worked much without bringing 
out anything. 

Voltaire had just inaugurated the great national tragedy of his country, 
as he had likewise given it the only national epic attempted in France since 
the Cliansons de geste ; by one of those equally sudden and imprudent 
reactions to which he was always subject, it was not long before he himself 
damaged his own success by the publication of his Lettrcs pJulosopJnqucs sur 
Ics Anglais. 

The light and mocking tone of these letters, the constant comparison 
between the two peoples, with many a gibe at the English, but always turning 
to their advantage, the preference given to the philosophical system of 
Newton over that of Descartes, lastly the attacks upon religion concealed 
beneath the cloak of banter — all this was more than enough to ruffle the 
tranquillity of Cardinal Fleury. The book was brought before parliament : 
Voltaire was disquieted. He ran, first, for refuge to Bale, then to the castle 
of Cirey, to the Marchioness du Chatelet's, a woman as learned as she was 
impassioned, devoted to literature, physics and mathematics, and tenderly 
attached to Voltaire, whom she enticed along with her into the paths of 
science. For fifteen years Madame du Chatelet and Cirey ruled supreme 
over the poet's hfe. Every now and then, terrified in consequence of some 



240 



FRANCE.— LITERATURE. [1748 



bit of anti-religious rashness, he took flight, going into hiding at one time to 
the court of Lorraine beneath the wing of King Stanislaus, at another time 
in Holland, at a palace belonging to the king of Prussia, the Great 
Frederick. 

Madame du Chatelet died on the 4th of September, 1749, at Lun6ville, 
where she then happened to be with Voltaire. Their intimacy had 
experienced many storms, yet the blow was a cruel one for the poet ; in 
losing Madame du Chatelet he was losing the center and the guidance of his 
life. 

Despite the luster of that fame which was attested by the frequent 
attacks of his enemies as much as by the admiration of his friends, 
Voltaire was displeased with his sojourn at Paris, and weary of the court and 
the men of letters. The king had always exhibited toward him a coldness 
which the poet's adulation had not been able to overcome ; he had offended 
Madame de Pompadour, who had but lately been well disposed toward him ; 
the religious circle, ranged around the queen and the dauphin, was of course 
hostile to him. 

In tracing the tragic episodes of the war, Voltaire, set as his mind was on 
the royal favor, had wanted in the first place to pay homage to the friends he 
had lost. It was in the " eulogium of the officers Avho fell in the campaign of 
1 741" that he touchingly called attention to the memory of Vauvenargues. 
He, born at Aix on the 6th of August, 171 5, died of his wounds, at Paris, in 
1747. His friends had constrained him to publish a little book, one only, the 
Introdnctio7i a la connaissance de V esprit Jmmain, siiivie de reflexions et de 
maximes. Its success justified their affectionate hopes : delicate minds took 
keen delight in the first essays of Vauvenargues. Hesitating between religion 
and philosophy, with a palpable leaning toward the latter, ill and yet bravely 
bearing the disappointments and sufferings of his life, Vauvenargues was 
already expiring at thirty years of age, when Provence was invaded by the 
enemy. The dying man remained in his chimney-corner, where he soon 
expired, leaving among the public and still more among those who had known 
him personally the impression of great promise sadly extinguished. " It was 
his fate," says his faithful biographer, M. Gilbert, " to be always opening his 
■wings and to be unable to take flight." 

Voltaire, quite on the contrary, was about to take a fresh flight. After 
several rebuffs and long opposition on the part of the eighteen ecclesiastics 
who at that time had seats in the French Academy, he had been elected to it 
in 1746. In 1750, he offered himself at one and the same time for the 
Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Inscriptions : he failed in both 
candidatures. This mishap filled the cup of his ill-humor. For a long time 
past Frederick II. had been offering the poet favors which he had long 
refused. The disgust he experienced at Paris through his insatiable vanity 
made him determine upon seeking another arena ; after having accepted a 
pension and a place from the king of Prussia, Voltaire set out for Berlin. 
He was received there with enthusiasm and as sovereign of the little court of 



1774] FRANCE.— LITERATURE. 241 

philosophers; but his intimacy with Frederick II. did not last long; it had 
for awhile done honor to both of them, it had ended by betraying the 
pettinesses and the meannesses natural to the king as well as to the poet. 
Frederick did not remain without anxiety on the score of Voltaire's rancour : 
Voltaire dreaded nasty diplomatic proceedings on the part of the king ; he 
had been threatened with as much by Lord Keith, Milord ATardchal, ■SiS ho 
was called on the continent from the hereditary title he had lost in his own 
country through his attachment to the cause of the Stuarts. 

Voltaire was already in France, but he dared not venture to Paris. 
Mutilated, clumsy or treacherous issues of the Abrcgc dc rHistoire univcrsclU 
had already stirred the bile of the clergy ; there were to be seen in circulation 
copies of La Piicclk, a disgusting poem which the author had been keeping 
back and bringing out alternately for several years past. Voltaire fled from 
Colmar, where the Jesuits held sway, to Lyons, where he found Marshal 
Richelieu, but lately his protector and always his friend, who was repairing to 
his government of Languedoc. Cardinal Tencin refused to receive the 
poet, who regarded this sudden severity as a sign of the feelings of the court 
toward him. He took fright and sought refuge in Switzerland, where he 
soon settled on the lake of Geneva, pending his purchase of the estate of 
Ferney in the district of Gex and that of Tourney in Burgundy. He was 
henceforth fixed, free to pass from France to Switzerland and from Switzerland 
to France; in the comparative security which he thought he possessed, he 
gave scope to all his free-thinking, which had but lately been often cloaked 
according to circumstances. In the great campaign against Christianity 
undertaken by philosophers, Voltaire, so long a wavering ally, will henceforth 
fight in the foremost ranks , it is he who shouts to Diderot, " Squelch the 
\}im\^{Ecrasez Vinfame) ! " The masks are off, and the fight is bare-faced ; the 
Encyclopedists march out to the conquest of the world in the name of 
reason, humanity and free-thinking ; even when he has ceased to work at the 
Encyclopedia Voltaire marches with them. 

Innate love of justice and horror of fanaticism had inspired Voltaire with 
his zeal on behalf of the Calas family and other persecuted Protestants ; a 
more personal feeling, a more profound sympathy caused his grief and his 
dread when Chevalier de la Barre, accused of having mutilated a crucifix, was 
condemned, in 1766, to capital punishment ; the skepticism of the eighteenth 
century had sudden and terrible reactions toward fanatical violence, as a 
protest and a pitiable struggle againt the doubt which was invading it on all 
sides : the chevalier was executed ; he was not twenty years old. He was an 
infidel and a libertine, like the majority of the young men of his day and of 
his age : the crime he expiated so cruelly was attributed to reading bad books, 
which had corrupted him. 

Voltaire reigned peacefully, however, over his little empire at Ferney, 

courted from afar by all the sovereigns of Europe who made any profession 

of philosophy. " I have a sequence of four kings," he would say with a 

laugh when he counted his letters from royal personages. The empress of 

16 



242 FRANCE.— LITERATURE. [1748 

Russia, Catherine II., had dethroned, in his mind, the Great Frederick. He 
was destined to die at Paris ; there he found the last joys of his Hfe, and there 
he shed the last rays of his glory, 

Voltaire's incessant activity bore many fruits which survived him ; he 
contributed powerfully to the triumph of those notions of humanity, justice 
and freedom, which, superior to his own ideal, did honor to the eighteenth 
century , he became the model of a style, clear, neat, brilliant, the natural 
exponent of his own mind, far more than of the as yet confused hopes and 
aspirations of his age , he defended the rights of comimon sense and some- 
times withstood the anti-religious passion of his friends, but he blasted both 
minds and souls with his skeptical gibes, his bitter and at the same time 
temperate banter disturbed consciences which would have been revolted by 
the materialistic doctrines of the Encyclopedists, the circle of infidslily 
widened under his hands , his disciples were able to go beyond him on the 
fatal path he had opened to them. Voltaire has remained the true represen- 
tative of the mocking and the stone-flinging phase of free-thinking, knov/ing 
nothing of the deep yearnings any more than of the supreme wretchlessness 
of the human soul, which it kept imprisoned within the narrow limits of earth 
and time. At the outcome from the bloody slough of the French revolution 
and from the chaos it caused in men's souls, it was the infidelity of Voltaire 
which remained at the bottom of the skepticism and moral disorder of the 
France of our day. The demon which torments her is even more Voltairian 
than materialistic. 

Other influences, more sincere and at the same time more dangerous, 
were simultaneously undermining men's minds. The group of Encyclopedists, 
less prudent and less temperate than Voltaire, flaunted openly the flag of 
revolt. At the head marched Denis Diderot, born in 171 5, the most daring 
of all, the most genuinely affected by his own ardor, without perhaps being 
the most sure of his ground in his negations. He was an original and 
exuberant nature, expansively open to all new impressions ; it was in 
conjunction with his friends and in community of ideas that Diderot under- 
took the immense labor of the Encyclopedia. Having, in the first instance, 
received a commission from a publisher to translate the English collection of 
[Ephraim] Chambers, Diderot was impressed with a desire to unite in one 
and the same collection all the efforts and all the talents of his epoch,, so as 
to render joint homage to the rapid progress of science. Won over by his 
enthusiasm, D'Alembert consented to share the task; and he wrote the 
beautiful exposition in the introduction. Voltaire sent his articles from Les 
Delices. The Jesuits had proposed to take upon themselves a certain number 
of questions, but their co-operation was declined : it was a monument to 
philosophy that the Encyclopedists aspired to raise : the clergy were in 
commotion at seeing the hostile army, till then uncertain and unhanded, rally 
organized and disciplined around this vast enterprise. New severities on the 
part of the parliament and the grand council dealt a blow to the philosophers 
before long : the editors' privilege was revoked. Orders were given to seize 



1774] FRANCE.— LITERATURE. 243 

Diderot's papers. Lamoignon de Malesherbcs, who was at that time director 
of the press, and favorable to freedom without ever having abused it in 
thought or action, sent him secret warning, Diderot ran home in 
consternation. 

The severities ordered against the Encyclopedia did not stop its publication ; 
D'Alembert, however, weary of the struggle, had ceased to take part in the 
editorship. An infidel and almost a materialist by the geometer's rule, who 
knows no power but the laws of mathematics, he did not carry into anti- 
religious strife the bitterness of Voltaire, or the violence of Diderot. More 
and more absorbed by pure science, which he never neglected save for the 
French Academy, whose perpetual secretary he had become, D'Alembert left 
to Diderot alone the care of continuing the Encyclopedia. When he died, in 
1783, at fifty-six years of age, the work had been finished nearly twenty years. 
In spite of the bad faith of publishers, who mutilated articles to render them 
acceptable, in spite of the condemnation of the clergy and the severities of 
the council, the last volumes of the Encyclopedia had appeared in 1765. 

This immense work, unequal and confused as it was, a medley of various 
and often ill-assorted elements, undertaken for and directed to the fixed end 
of an aggressive emancipation of thought, had not sufficed to absorb the 
energy and powers of Diderot. Diderot died on the 29th of July, 1784, still 
poor, an invalid for some time past, surrounded to the end by his friends, who 
rendered back to him that sincere and devoted affection which he made the 
pride of his life. The charm of his character had often caused people to for- 
get his violence, which he himself no longer remembered the next day. 

The magistrate's mind understood and appreciated the great natural- 
ist's genius. Diderot felt in his own fashion the charm of nature, but, as was 
said by Chevalier Chastellux, " his ideas got drunk and set to work chasing 
one another." The ideas of Buffon, on the other hand, came out in the ma- 
jesti corder of a system under powerful organization and informed as it were 
with the very secrets of the Creator. 

It was in his dignified and studious retirement at Montbard that Buffon, 
after having transformed and almost created the Paris Jardin du Roi, quietly 
passed his long life. Born in 1707, he died on the 14th of April, 1788. " I 
dedicated," he says, "twelve, nay, fourteen, hours to study; it was my whole 
pleasure. In truth, I devoted myself to it far more than I troubled myself 
about fame; fame comes afterward, if it may, and it nearly always does." 

Buffon did not lack fame ; on the appearance of the first three volumes 
of his Histoire naturelle, published in 1749, the breadth of his views, the beauty 
of his language and the strength of his mind excited general curiosity and admi- 
ration. The Sorbonne was in a flutter at certain bold propositions ; BufTon, 
without being disconcerted, took pains to avoid condemnation. Despite 
certain boldnesses which had caused anxiety, the Sorbonne had reason to 
compliment the great naturalist. The unity of the human race as well as its 
superior dignity were already vindicated in these first efforts of Buffon's 
genius, and his mind never lost sight of this great verity. He continued 



244 FRANCE.— LITERATURE. [1748 

his work, adroitly availing himself of the talent and researches of the numer- 
ous co-operators whom he had managed to gather about him, directing them 
all with indefatigable vigilance in their labors and their observations. '' Genius 
is but a greater aptitude for perseverance," he used to say, himself justifying 
his definition by the assiduity of his studies. 

Some of Buffon's theories have been disputed by his successors' science ; 
as D'Alembert said of Descartes : " If he was mistaken about the laws of 
motion, he was the first to divine that there must be some." Buffon divined 
the epochs of nature, and by the intuition of his genius, absolutely unshackled 
by any religious prejudice, he involuntarily reverted to the account given in 
Genesis : " We are persuaded," he says, " independently of the authority of the 
sacred books, that man was created last, and that he only came to wield the 
scepter of the earth when that earth was found worthy of his sway." 

Buffon was still working at eighty years of age ; he had undertaken a dis- 
sertation on style, a development of his splendid reception-speech at the 
French Academy. Great sorrows had crossed his life ; married late to a 
young wife whom he loved, he lost her early ; she left him a son, brought up 
under his wing and the object of his constant solicitude. 

When the young Count de Buffon, an officer in the artillery and at first 
warmly favorable to the noble professions of the French Revolution, had, like 
his peers, to mount the scaffold of the Terror, he damned with one word the 
judges who profaned in his person his father's glory. " Citizens," he exclaim- 
ed from the fatal car, " my name is Buffon." With less respect for the rights 
of genius than was shown by the Algerian pirates who let pass, without open- 
ing them, the chests directed to the great naturalist, the executioner of the 
committee of public safety cut off his son's head. 

" How many great men do you reckon ? " Buffon was asked one day. 
" Five," answered he at once : " Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu and 
myself." 

This self-appreciation, fostered by the homage of his contemporaries, 
which showed itself in Buffon undisguisedly with an air of ingenuous satisfac- 
tion, had poisoned a life already extinguished ten years before amid the 
bitterest agonies. Taking up arms against a society in which he had not 
found his proper place, Jean Jacques Rousseau (born at Geneva, 28th of June, 
1 7 12) had attacked the present as well as the past, the Encyclopedists as well 
as the old social organization. It was from the first his distinctive trait to 
voluntarily create a desert around him. The eighteenth centuiy was in its 
nature easily seduced ; liberal, generous and open to allurements, it delighted 
in intellectual contentions, even the most dangerous and the most daring; it 
vv^elcomed with alacrity all those who thus contributed to its pleasures. The 
charming drawing-rooms of Madame Geoffrin, of Madame du Deffand, of 
Mdlle. Lespinasse, belonged of right to philosophy. Rousseau never took his 
place in this circle ; in this society he marched in front like a pioneer of new 
times, attacking tentatively all that he encountered on his way. " Nobody 



^774] FRANCE.-LITERATURE. o,. 

was ever at one and the same time more factious and more dictatorial " is 
the clever dictum of M. St. Marc Girardin. 

In his Disconrs sur Ics Sciences et les Arts, Rousseau showed the 
characteristic which invariably distinguished him from the philosophers 
and which ended by establishing deep enmity between them and him ■ 
the eighteenth century espied certain evils, certain sores in the social 
and political condition, believed in a cure and blindly relied on the 
power of Its own theories. Rousseau, more earnest, often more sincere 
made a better diagnosis of the complaint, he described its horrible character 
and the dangerousness of it, he saw no remedy and he pointed none 
out Profound and grievous impotence, whose utmost hope is an impos- 
sible recurrence to the primitive state of savagery! 

Before Rousseau, and better than he, Christianity had recognized and 
proclaimed the evil; but it had, at the same time, announced to the 
world a remedy and a Saviour. 

Henceforth Rousseau had chosen his own road: giving up the drawin- 
rooms and the habits of that elegant society for which he was not 
born and the admiration of which had developed his pride, he made 
up his mmd to live independent, copying music to get his bread now 
and then smitten with the women of the world who sought him out 
m his retirement, in love with Madame d'Epinay and Madame d'Houdetot 
anon returning to the coarse servant-wench whom he had but lately 
made his wife and whose children he had put in the foundling-hospital 
Music at that time absorbed all minds: Rousseau brought out a little 
opera entitled Le Devin de village {The Village Wizard), which had a 
great success. It was played at Fontainebleau before the king. The 
emotions of the eighteenth century were vivid and easily roused ; fastenincr 
upon everything without any earnest purpose and without any grea't 
sense of responsibility it grew as hot over a musical dispute as ''over 
the gravest questions of morality or philosophy. 

The singularity of his paradox had worn off; Rousseau no longer 
astounded, he shocked the good sense as well as the aspirations, sup'^er- 
ficial or generous, of the eighteenth century: the Discoms stir rimgalitif 
des conditions was not a success. It was at the Hermitage, under IMadame 
d'Epinay's roof, that he began the tale of La Nouvelle He'loisc, vAVxch 
was finished at Marshal de Montmorency's, when the susceptible and cranky 
temper of the philosopher had justified the malevolent predictions of 
Grimm. 

Rousseau quarreled with Madame d'Epinay, and shortly afterward 
with all the philosophical circle: Grimm, Helvetius, D'Holbach, Diderot; 
his quarrels with the last were already of old date, they had made some 
noise. The rupture was at last complete, it extended to Grimm as well 
as to Diderot. "Nobody can put himself in my place," wrote Rousseau, 
"and nobody will see that I am a being apart, who has not the 



246 FRANCE.— LITERATURE. [1748 

character, the maxims, the resources of the rest of them, and who must 
not be judged by their rules." 

Rousseau was right: he was a being apart; and the philosophers 
could not forgive him for his independence. His merits as well as his 
defects annoyed them equally : his Lettre contre les Spectacles had exasper- 
ated Voltaire; isolated henceforth by the good as well as by the evil 
tendencies of his nature, Jean Jacques stood alone against the philosoph- 
ical circle as well as against the Protestant or Catholic clergy whose 
creed he often offended. He had just published Le Contrat Social, 
''The Gospel," says M. Saint-Marc Girardin, "of the theory as to the 
sovereignty of the State representing the sovereignty of the people." 
The book had barely begun to appear, when, on the 8th of June, 1762, 
Rousseau was awakened by a message from La Marechale de Luxembourg ; 
the parliament had ordered Emile to be burned and its author arrested. 
Rousseau took flight, reckoning upon finding refuge at Geneva. The influ- 
ence of the French government pursued him thither ; the grand council con- 
demned Emile. One single copy had arrived at Geneva : it was this which 
was burned by the hand of the common hangman, nine days after the 
burning at Paris in the Place de Greve. " The Contrat Social has received 
its whipping on the back of Emile,'' was the saying at Geneva. "At 
the instigation of M. de Voltaire they have avenged upon me the cause 
of God," Jean Jacques declared. 

Rousseau rashly put his name to his books ; Voltaire was more 
prudent. One day, having been imprisoned for some verses which were 
not his, he had taken the resolution to imprudently repudiate the paternity 
of his own works: "You must never publish anything under your own 
name," he wrote to Helvetius ; ''La Pucelle was none of, my doing, of 
course. Master Joly de Fleury will make a fine thing of his requisition ; 
I shall tell him that he is a calumniator, that La Pucelle is his own doing, 
which he wants to put down to me out of spite." 

Rousseau died at the pavilion of Ermenonville, which had been 
offered to him by M. de Girardin; he died there at the age of sixty- 
six, sinking even more beneath imaginary woes than under the real 
sorrows and bitter deceptions of his life. The disproportion between 
his intellect and his character, between the boundless pride and the 
impassioned weakness of his spirit, had little by little estranged his 
friends and worn out the admiration of his contemporaries. By his writings 
Rousseau acted more powerfully upon posterity than upon his own times : 
his personality had ceased to do his genius injustice. ^ 

He belonged moreover and by anticipation to a new era; from the 
restless working of his mind, as well as from his moral and political 
tendencies, he was no longer of the eighteenth century properly speaking, 
though the majority of the philosophers out-lived him; his work was 
not their work, their world was never his. He had attempted a noble 
reaction, but one which was fundamentally and in reality impossible. 



1774] FRANCE.— LITERATURE. 247 

The impress of his early education had never been thoroughly effaced: 
he believed in God, he had been nurtured upon the Gospel in child- 
hood, he admired the morality and the life of Jesus Christ; but he 
stopped at the boundaries of adoration and submission. Against the 
systematic -infidelity which was more and more creeping over the eio-hteenth 
century, the Christian faith alone, with all its forces, could fight and 
triumph. But the Christian faith was obscured and enfeebled, it clung 
to the vessel's rigging instead of defending its powerful hull ; the flood 
was rising meanwhile, and the dikes were breaking one after another. 
The religious belief of the Savoyard vicar, imperfect and inconsistent, 
such as it is set forth in Emilc, and that sincere love of nature which 
was recovered by Rousseau in his solitude, remained powerless to guide 
the soul and regulate life. • 

" The eighteenth century " [M. Guizot, Melanges biographiqiies : {Madame 
la Cointcssc de Rmnford')\ was far superior to all its skeptics, to all its cynics. 
What do I say? Superior? Nay, it was essentially opposed to them and 
continually gave them the lie. Despite the weakness of its morals, the frivol- 
ity of its forms, the mere dry bones of such and such of its doctrines, despite 
its critical and destructive tendency, it was an ardent and a sincere century, 
a century of faith and disinterestedness. It had faith in the truth, for it 
claimed the right thereof to reign in this world. It had faith in humanity, 
for it recognized the right thereof to perfect itself, and would have had that 
right exercised without obstruction. It erred, it lost itself amid this twofold 
confidence ; it attempted what was far beyond its right and power ; it mis- 
judged the moral nature of man and the conditions of the social state. Its 
ideas as well as its works contracted the blemish of its views. But, granted 
so much, the original idea, dominant in the eighteenth century, the belief that 
man, truth and society are made for one another, worthy of one another and 
called upon to form a union, this correct and salutary belief rises up and over- 
tops all its history. That belief it was the first to proclaim and would fain 
have realized. Hence its power and its popularity over the whole face of the 
earth. Hence, also, to descend from great things to small, and from the 
destiny of man to that of the drawing-room, hence the seductiveness of that 
epoch and the charm it scattered over social life. Never before were seen all 
the conditions, all the classes that form the flower of a great people, however 
diverse they might have been in their history and still were in their interests, 
thus forgetting their past, their personality, in order to draw near to one 
another, to unite in a communion of the sweetest manners and solely occu- 
pied in pleasing one another, in rejoicing and hoping together during fifty 
years which were to end in the most terrible conflicts between them." 

At the death of King Louis XV., in 1774, the easy-mannered joyance, 
the peaceful and brilliant charm of fashionable and philosophical society were 
reaching their end: the time of stern realities was approaching with long 
strides. 



XY. 



LOUIS m-IITEEML POLIGY-MIGE Al AMIGA. 




(177-5-1789.) 



T the news that Louis XV. had just heaved his last sigh 
in the arms of his pious daughters, Louis XVL and 
Marie Antqinette both flung themselves upon theii 
knees, exclaiming, " O God, protect us, direct us, we 
are too young." 
^^:^ The monarch's youth did not scare the country, 

' " \¥> itself everywhere animated and excited by a breath of 
|a youth. There were congratulations on escaping from the well-known 
troubles of a regency ; the king's ingenuous inexperience, more- 
over, opened a vast field for the most contradictory hopes. The 
^ philosophers counted upon taking possession of the mind of a good 
young sovereign, who was said to have his heart set upon his peo- 
Sl pie's happiness; the clergy and the Jesuits themselves expected 
everything from the young prince's pious education ; the old 
parliaments^ mutilated, crushed down, began to raise up their heads 
again, while the economists were already preparing their most daring projects. 
The painters, the sculptors and the architects of France were sufficient for 
her glory ; only Gretry and Monsiguy upheld the honor of that French music 
which was attacked by Grimm and by Jean Jacques Rousseau ; but it was at 
Paris that the great quarrel went on between the Italians and the Germans. 
Piccini and Gluck divided society, wherein their rivalry excited violent 
passions. Everywhere and on all questions, intellectual movement was 
becoming animated with fresh ardor , France was marching toward the region 
of storms, in the blindness of her confidence and joyance ; the atmosphere 
seemed purer since Madame Dubarry had been sent to a convent by one of 
the first orders of young Louis XVL 

Already, however, farseeing spirits were disquieted : scarcely had he 
mounted the throne, when the king summoned to his side, as his minister, 
M. de Maurepas, but lately banished by Louis XV., in 1749, on a charge of 
having tolerated, if not himself written, songs disrespectful toward Madame 
de Pompadour ; in the place of the duke of Aiguillon, who had the ministry 
of war and that of foreign affairs both together, the count of Muy and the 
count of Vergennes were called to power. Some weeks later, the obscure 
minister of marine, M. de Boynes, made way for the superintendent of the 
district {^generalite) of Limoges, M. Turgot. 



1789] FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. 249 

Intimately connected with the most esteemed magistrates and econo- 
mists, such as MM. Trudaine, Quesnay, and Gournay, at the same time that 
he was writing in the Encyclopedia, and constantly occupied in useful work, 
Turgot was not yet five-and-thirty when he was appointed superintendent of 
the district of Limoges. There, the rare faculties of his mind and his 
sincere love of good found their natural field ; the country was poor, crushed 
under imposts, badly intersected by roads badly kept, inhabited by an igno- 
rant populace, violently hostile to the recruitment of the militia. He 
encouraged agriculture, distributed the talliages more equitably, amended 
the old roads and constructed new ones, abolished forced labor {corv^es), 
provided for the wants of the poor and wretched during the dearth of 1770 
and 1 77 1, and declined, successively, the superintendentship of Rouen, of 
Lyons, and of Bordeaux, in order that he might be able to complete the use- 
ful tasks he had begun at Limoges. It was from that district that he was 
called to a seat in the new cabinet. Scarcely had he been installed in the 
department of marine, and begun to conceive vast plans, when the late 
ministers of Louis XV. succumbed at last beneath the popular hatred ; in 
the place of Abbe Terray, M. Turgot became comptroller-general. 

The old parliamentarians were triumphant ; at the same time as Abbe 
Terray, Chancellor Maupeou was disgraced, and the judicial system he had 
founded fell with him. Unpopular from the first, the Maupeou parliament 
had remained in the nation's eyes the image of absolute power corrupted and 
corrupting. The suit between Beaumarchais and Councillor Goezman had 
contributed to decry it, thanks to the uproar the able pamphleteer had 
managed to cause ; the families of the former magistrates were powerful, 
numerous, esteemed, and they put pressure upon public opinion. Imper- 
turbable and haughty as ever, Maupeou retired to his estate at Thuit, near 
the Andelys, where he drew up a justificatory memorandum of his ministry, 
w^hich he. had put into the king's hands, without ever attempting to enter the 
court or Paris again ; he died in the country, at the outset of the revolution- 
ary storms, on the 29th of July, 1792, just as he had made the State a patri- 
otic present of eight hundred thousand livres. At the moment when the 
populace were burning him in efifigy in the streets of Paris together with Abbe 
Terray, when he saw the recall of the parliamentarians, and the work of his 
whole life destroyed, he repeated with his usual coolness : " If the king is 
pleased to lose his kingdom — well, he is master." 

Abb^ Terray had been less proud, and was more harshly treated. It was 
in vain that he sought to dazzle the young king with ably prepared memo- 
rials , he had to refund nearly nine hundred thousand livres to the public 
treasury. Being recognized by the mob as he was passing over the Seine in a 
ferry boat, he had some difficulty in escaping from the hands of those who 
would have hurled him into the river. 

After his first interview with the king, at Compicgnc, M. Turgot wrote 
to Louis XVI. :— " Your Majesty has been graciously pleased to permit me 
to place before your eyes the engagement you took upon yourself, to support 



250 FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. [1775 

me in the executian of plans of economy which are at all times, and now 
more than ever, indispensable. I confine myself for the moment, sir, to 
reminding you of these three expressions : — First degree, No bankruptcies ; 
Second degree, No augmentation of imposts ; Third degree, No loans." M. 
Turgot set to work at once. While governing his district of Limoges, he 
had matured numerous plans and shaped extensive theories. He belonged 
to his times and to the school of the philosophers as regarded his contempt 
for tradition and history ; it was to natural rights alone, to the innate and 
primitive requirements of mankind that he traced back his principles and 
referred as the basis for all his attempts. 

Two fundamental principles regulated the financial system of M. Turgot, 
economy in expenditure and freedom in trade ; everywhere he ferreted out 
abuses, abolishing useless offices and payments, exacting from the entire 
administration that strict probity of which he set the example. Louis XVI. 
supported him conscientiously at that time in all his reforms : the public 
made fun of it. It was on account of his financial innovations that the comp- 
troller-general particularly dreaded the return of the old parliament with 
which he saw himself threatened every day. On the 12th of November, 
1774, the old parliament was formally restored, subjected, however, to 
the same jurisdiction which had controlled the Maupeou parliament. The 
latter had been sent to Versailles to form a grand council there. The re- 
stored magistrates grumbled at the narrow limits imposed upon their 
authority ; the duke of Orleans, the duke of Chartres, the prince of Conti 
supported their complaints ; it was in vain that the king for some time met 
them with refusals ; threats soon gave place to concessions ; and the parlia- 
ments everywhere reconstituted, enfeebled in the eyes of public opinion, but 
more than ever obstinate and Fronde-like, found themselves free to harass, 
without doing any good, the march of an administration becoming every day 
more difficult. 

M. Turgot, meanwhile, was continuing his labors, preparing a project 
for equitable redistribution of the talliage and his grand system of a gradu- 
ated scale ijiier archie) of municipal assemblies^ commencing with the parish, 
to culminate in a general meeting of delegates from each province ; he 
threatened, in the course of his reforms, the privileges of the noblesse and of 
the clergy, and gave his mind anxiously to the instruction of the people, 
whose condition and welfare he wanted to simultaneously elevate and 
augment ; already there was a buzz of murmurs against him, confined as yet 
to the courtiers, when the dearness of bread and the distress which ensued in 
the spring of 1775 furnished his adversaries with a convenient pretext. Up 
to that time the attacks had been cautious and purely theoretical. M. Necker, 
an able banker from Geneva, for a long while settled in Paris, hand and glove 
with the philosophers, and keeping up, moreover, a great establishment, had 
brought to the comptroller-general a work which he had just finished on the 
trade in grain ; on many points he did not share M. Turgot's opinions. " Be 
kind enough to ascertain for yourself," said the banker to the minister, 



1779] FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. 



251 



"whether the book can be pubhshed without inconvenience to the govern- 
ment." M. Turgot was proud and sometimes rude : " Publish, sir, pubHsh." 
said he, without offering his hand to take the manuscript, "the pubHc shall 
decide." M. Necker, out of piquc, published his book , it had an immense 
sale ; other pamphlets, more violent and less solid, had already appeared , at 
the same moment a riot, which seemed to have been planned and to be under 
certain guidance, broke out in several parts of France. Drunken men 
shouted about the public thoroughfares, " Bread ! cheap bread ! " 

Serious damage was done throughout France to property, and even to 
provisions ; barns were burnt, farm-houses plundered, wheat thrown into the 
river, and sacks of flour ripped to pieces before the king's eyes at Versailles. 
At last the troubles began to subside, and the merchants recovered their 
spirits; M. Turgot had at once sent fifty thousand francs to a trader whom 
the rioters had robbed of a boat full of wheat which they had flung into the 
river ; two of the insurgents were at the same time hanged at Paris on a 
gallows forty feet high, and a notice was sent to the parish-priests, which they 
were to read from the pulpit in order to enlighten the people as to the folly 
of such outbreaks, and as to the conditions of the trade in grain. 

Severities were hateful to the king ;. he had misjudged his own character, 
when, at the outset of his reign, he had desired the appellation of Lout's Ic 
Severe. " Have we nothing to reproach ourselves with in these measures?" 
he was incessantly asking M. Turgot, who was as conscientious, but more 
resolute, than his master. An amnesty preceded the coronation, Avhich was 
to take place at Reims on the nth of June, 1775. 

A grave question presented itself as regarded the king's oath : should he 
swear, as the majority of his predecessors had sworn, to exterminate 
heretics ? M. Turgot had aroused Louis XVI. 's scruples upon this subject : 
" Tolerance ought to appear expedient in point of policy for even an infidel 
prince," he said ; " but it ought to be regarded as a sacred duty for a religious 
prince." The clergy, scared by the minister's liberal tendencies, reiterated 
their appeals to the king against the liberties tacitly accorded to Protestants. 
" Finish," they said to Louis XVI., " the work which Louis the Great began, 
and which Louis the Well-beloved continued." The king answered with 
vague assurances ; already MM. Turgot and de Malesherbes were entertaining 
him with a project which conceded to Protestants the civil status. 

M. de Malesherbes, indeed, had been for some months past seconding his 
friend in the weighty task which the latter had undertaken. Called to the 
ministry in the place of the duke of La Vrilliere, his first care was to protest 
against the sealed letters ilettres de cachet — summary arrest), the application 
whereof he was for putting in the hands of a special tribunal ; he visited the 
Bastile, releasing the prisoners confined on simple suspicion. He had already 
dared to advise the king to a convocation of the States-general. 

Almost the whole ministry was in the hands of reformers ; a sincere 
desire to do good impelled the king toward those who promised him the 
happiness of his people. The Count de St. Germain, who succeeded M. <\c 



252 FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. [1775 

Muy at the war-office, had conceived a thousand projects of reform ; he 
wanted to apply them all at once. He made no sort of case of the picked 
corps, and suppressed the majority of them, thus irritating, likewise, all the 
privileged. The enthusiasm which had been excited by the new minister of 
war had disappeared from among the officers ; he lost the hearts of the 
soldiers by wanting to establish in the army the corporal punishments in use 
among the German armies in which he had served. The feeling was so 
strong that the attempt was abandoned. Violent and weak both together, 
in spite of his real merit and his genuine worth, often giving up wise 
resolutions out of sheer embarrassment, he nearly always failed in what he 
undertook ; the outcries against the reformers were increased thereby ; the 
faults of M. de St. Germain were put down to M. Turgot. 

He had proposed to the king six edicts ; two were extremely important ; 
the first abolished jurorships [jurandes) and masterships {inaitriscs) among 
the workmen : " The king," said the preamble, " wishes to secure to all his 
subjects, and especially to the humblest, to those who have no property but 
their labor and their industry, the full and entire enjoyment of their rights, 
and to reform, consequently, the institutions which strike at those rights, and 
which, in spite of their antiquity, have failed to be legalized by time, opinion 
and even the acts of authority." The second substituted for forced labor on 
roads and highways an impost to which all proprietors were equally liable. 

This was the first step toward equal redistribution of taxes ; great was 
the explosion of disquietude and wrath on the part of 'the privileged ; it 
showed itself first in the council, by the mouth of M. de Miromesnil ; Turgot 
sprang up with animation. " The keeper of the seals," he said, " seems to 
adopt the principle that, by the constitution of the State, the noblesse ought 
to be exempt from all taxation. This idea will appear a paradox to the 
majority of the nation. The commoners {roturiers) are certainly the greatest 
number, and we are no longer in the days when their voices did not count." 
The king listened to the discussion in silence. " Come," he exclaimed 
abruptly, " I see that there are only M. Turgot and I here who love the 
people," and he signed the edicts. 

The comptroller-general was triumphant ; but his victory was but the 
prelude to his fall. Too many enemies were leagued against him, irritated 
both by the noblest qualities of his character, and at the same time by the 
natural defects of his manners. He fought single-handed. M. de Male- 
sherbes, firm as a rock at the head of the Court of Aids, supported as he 
was by the traditions and corporate feeling of the magistracy, had shown 
weakness as a minister. The two friends fell together. M. Turgot had 
espied the danger and sounded some of the chasms just yawning beneath the 
feet of the nation as well as of the king ; he committed the noble error of 
believing in the instant and supreme influence of justice and reason. Had he 
been longer in power, M. Turgot would still have failed in his designs. The 
life of one man was too short, and the hand of one man too weak, to modify 
the course of events ; fruit slowly ripened during so many centuries. It was 



1789J FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. 253 

to the honor of M. Turgot that he discerned the mischief and would fain 
have apphed the proper remedy. He was often mistaken about the means, 
oftener still about the strength he had at disposal. He had the good fortune 
to die early, still sad and anxious about the fate of his country, without 
having been a witness of the catastrophes he had foreseen and of the 
sufferings as well as wreckage through which France must pass before touching 
at the haven he would fain have opened to her. 

The joy of the courtiers was great, at Versailles, when the news arrived 
of M. Turgot's fall ; the public regretted it but little ; the inflexible severity 
of his principles, which he never veiled by grace of manners, a certain 
disquietude occasioned by the chimerical views which were attributed to 
him, had alienated many people from him. His real friends were in con- 
sternation. 

A few months later M. de St. Germain retired in his turn, not to Alsace 
again, but to the Arsenal with forty thousand livres for pension. The first, 
the great attempt at reform, had failed ; a vain attempt had been made to 
establish the government on the soundest as well as the most moderate 
principles of pure philosophy ; at home a new attempt, bolder and at the 
same time more practical, was soon about to resuscitate for awhile the hopes 
of liberal minds ; abroad and in a new world there was already a commence- 
ment of events which were about to bring to France a revival of glory and to 
shed on the reign of Louis XVI. a moment's legitimate and brilliant 
luster. 

The Seven Years' War was ended, shamefully and sadly for France; M. 
de Choiseul, who had concluded peace with regret and a bitter pang, was 
ardently pursuing every means of taking his revenge. To foment disturb- 
ances between England and her colonies appeared to him an efficacious and a 
natural way of gratifying his feelings. " There is great difficulty in governing 
States in the days in which we live," he wrote to M. Durand, at that time 
French minister in London ; " still greater difficulty in governing those of 
America ; and the difficulty approaches impossibility as regards those of 
Asia. I am very much astonished that England, which is but a very small 
spot in Europe, should hold dominion over more than a third of America, 
and that her dominion should have no other object but that of trade. . . . 
As long as the vast American possessions contribute no subsidies for the 
support of the mother-country, private persons in England will still grow 
rich for some time on the trade with America, but the State will be undone 
for want of means to keep together a too extended power ; if, on the 
contrary, England proposes to establish imposts in her American domains, 
when they are more extensive and perhaps more populous than the mother- 
country, when they have fishing, woods, navigation, corn, iron, they will easily 
part asunder from her, without any fear of chastisement, for England could 
not undertake a war against them to chastise them." He encouraged his 
agents to keep him informed as to the state of feeling in America, welcoming 



254 FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. [1775 

and studying all projects, even the most fantastic, that might be hostile to 
England. (See American history.) 

On the loth of January, 1776, three weeks before the declaration of inde- 
pendence, M. de Vergennes secretly remitted a million to M. de Beaumarchais ; 
two months later the same sum was entrusted to him in the name of the king 
of Spain. Beaumarchais alone was to appear in the affair and to supply the 
insurgent Americans with arms and ammunition. "You will found," he had 
been told, " a great commercial house, and you will try to draw into it the 
money of private individuals ; the first outlay being now provided, we shall 
have no further hand in it ; the affair would compromise the government too 
much in the eyes of the English." It was under the style and title of Rodrigo 
Hortalez and Co. that the first installment of supplies, to the extent of more 
than three millions, was forwarded to the Americans ; and, notwithstanding 
the hesitation of the ministry and the rage of the English, other installments 
soon followed. Beaumarchais was henceforth personally interested in the 
enterprise ; he had commenced it from zeal for the American cause and from 
that yearning for activity and initiative which characterized him even in old 
age. " I should never have succeeded in fulfilling my mission here without 
the indefatigable, intelligent and generous efforts of M. de Beaumarchais," 
wrote Silas Deane to the secret committee of Congress : " the United States 
are more indebted to him, on every account, than to any other person on this 
side of the ocean." 

The hereditary sentiments of Louis XVI. and his monarchical principles, 
as well as the prudent moderation of M. Turgot, retarded at Paris the nego- 
tiations which caused so much ill-humor among the English, and which Silas 
Deane and Franklin were endeavoring to bring to a satisfactory issue , M. de 
Vergennes still preserved, in all diplomatic relations, an apparent neutrality. 
" It is my line {inMer), you see, to be a royalist," the emperor Joseph II. had 
said during a visit he had just paid to Paris, when he was pressed to declare 
in favor of the American insurgents ; at the bottom of his he.art the king of 
France was of the same opinion ; he had refused the permission to serve in 
America which he had been asked for by many gentlemen : some had set off 
without waiting for it ; the most important as well as the most illustrious of 
them all, the marquis of La Fayette, was not twenty years old when he slipped 
away from Paris, leaving behind his young wife close to her confinement, to 
go and embark upon a vessel which he had bought, and which, laden with 
arms, awaited him in a Spanish port ; arrested by order of the court, he 
evaded the vigilance of his guards ; in the month of July, 1777, he disembarked 
in America. 

Washington did not like France, he did not share the hopes which some 
of his fellow-countrymen founded upon her aid ; he made no case of the young 
volunteers who came to enroll themselves among the defenders of indepen- 
dence and whom Congress loaded with favors. " No bond but interest attaches 
these men to America," he would say, '* and, as for France, she only lets us 
set our munitions from her because of the benefit her commerce derives from 



1789J FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. 255 

it." Prudent, reserved and proud, Washington looked for America's salvation 
to only America herself ; neither had he foreseen, nor did he understand that 
enthusiasm, as generous as it is unreflecting, which easily takes possession of 
the French nation, and of which the United States were just then the object. 
M. de La Fayette was the first who managed to win the general's affection and 
esteem. A great yearning for excitement and renown, a great zeal for new 
ideas and a certain political perspicacity had impelled M. de La Fayette to 
America ; he showed himself courageous, devoted, more judicious and more 
able than had been expected from his youth and character. Washington 
came to love him as a son. The great and strong common sense of the Amer- 
ican general had enlightened him as to the conditions of the contest he had 
entered upon. He knew it was a desperate one, he foresaw that it would be 
'a long one ; better than anybody he knew the weaknesses as well as the merits 
of the instruments which he had at disposal, he had learned to desire the 
alliance and the aid of France. She did not belie his hopes , at the very 
moment when Congress was refusing to enter into negotiations with Great 
Britain as long as a single English soldier remained on American soil, rejoic- 
ings and thanksgivings were everywhere throughout the thirteen colonies 
greeting the news of the recognition by France of the independence of the 
United States; the treaties of alliance, a triumph of diplomatic ability on the 
part of Franklin had been signed at Paris on the 6th of February, 1778. 

"Assure the English government of the king's pacific intentions," M. de 
Vergennes had written to the marquis of Noailles, then French ambassador in 
England. George IIL replied to these mocking assurances by recalling his 
ambassador. 

" Anticipate your enemies," Franklin had said to the ministers of Louis 
XVI., "act toward them as they did to you in 1755 ; let your ships put to 
sea before any declaration of war; it will be time to speak when a French 
squadron bars the passage of Admiral Howe, who has ventured to ascend the 
Delaware." The king's natural straightforwardness and timidity were equally 
opposed to this bold project ; he hesitated a long while ; when Count 
d'Estaing at last, on the 13th of April, went out of Toulon harbor to sail for 
America with his squadron, it was too late, the English were on their guard. 

When the French admiral arrived in America, hostilities had commenced 
between France and England, without declaration of war, by the natural 
pressure of circumstances and the state of feeling in the two countries. 
England fired the first shot on the 17th of June, 1778. 

From the day when the duke of Choiseul had been forced to sign the 
humiliating treaty of 1763, he had never relaxed in his efforts to improve the 
French navy. In the course of ministerial alternations, frequently unfortu- 
nate for the work in hand, it had nevertheless been continued by his success- 
ors. Counts d'Estaing and d'Orvilliers nobly maintained the honor of the 
fleur-de-lys against such men as Admiral Howe and Lord Keppel ; in England 
the commotion was great at the news that France and America in arms 
against her had just been joined by Spain. Charles III. felt no sort of sym- 



256 FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. [1775 

pathy for a nascent republic ; he feared the contagion of the example it showed 
to the Spanish colonies ; he hesitated to plunge into the expenses of a war. 
His hereditary hatred against England prevailed at last over the dictates of 
prudence. He was promised, moreover, the assistance of France to reconquer 
Gibraltar and Minorca. The king of Spain consented to take part in the war, 
without however recognizing the independence of the United States or enter- 
ing- into alliance with them. 

The situation of England was becoming serious, she believed herself to 
be threatened with a terrible invasion. As in the days of the Great Armada, 
" orders were given to all functionaries, civil and military, in case of a descent 
of the enemy, to see to the transportation into the interior and into a place 
of safety of all horses, cattle and flocks that might happen to be on the 
coasts." " Sixty-six allied ships of the line plowed the Channel, fifty 
thousand men, mustered in Normandy, were preparing to burst upon the 
southern counties. A simple American corsair, Paul Jones, ravaged with 
impunity the coasts of Scotland. The powers of the North, united with 
Russia and Holland, threatened to maintain, with arms in hand, the rights of 
neutrals, ignored by the English admiralty-courts. Ireland awaited only the 
signal to revolt ; religious quarrels were distracting Scotland and England ; 
the authority of Lord North's cabinet Avas shaken in Parliament as weU as 
throughout the country, the passions of the mob held sway in London, and 
among the sights that might have been witnessed was that of this great city 
given up for nearly a week to the populace, without anything that could stay 
its excesses save its own lassitude and its own feeling of shame." [M. Cornells 
de Witt, Histoire de Washington^ 

Misfortune and disappointments are great destroyers of some barriers, 
prudent tact can overthrow others ; Washington and the American army 
would but lately have seen with suspicion the arrival of foreign auxiliaries ; 
in 1780, transports of joy greeted the news of their approach; M. de La 
Fayette, moreover, had been careful to spare the American general all painful 
friction. Count de Rochambeau and the French ofificers were placed under 
the orders of Washington, and the auxiliary corps entirely at his disposal. 
The delicate generosity and the disinterestedness of the French government 
had sometimes had the effect of making it neglect the national interests in its 
relations with the revolted colonies ; but it had derived therefrom a spirit of 
conduct invariably calculated to triumph over the prejudices, as well as the 
jealous pride of the Americans. 

" The history of the War of Independence is a history of hopes deceived," 
said Washington. He had conceived the idea of making himself master of 
New York with the aid of the French. The transport of the troops had been 
badly calculated ; Rochambeau brought to Rhode Island only the first division 
of his army, five thousand men about, and Count de Guichen, whose squadron 
had been relied upon, had just been recalled to France. Washington was 
condemned to inaction. '• Our position is not sufficiently brilliant," he wrote 
to M. de La Fayette, '' to justify our putting pressure upon Count de Ro- 



1789] FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. 257 

chambeau ; I shall continue our arrangements, however, in the hope of more 
fortunate circumstances." The American army was slow in getting organized, 
obliged as it had been to fight incessantly and make head against constantly 
recurring difHculties ; it was getting organized, however ; the example of the 
French, the discipline which prevailed in the auxiliary corps, the good under- 
standing thenceforth established among the officers, helped Washington in 
his difficult task. From the first the superiority of the general was admitted 
by the French as well as by the Americans ; naturally and by the mere fact 
of the gifts he had received from God, Washington was always and everywhere 
chief of the men placed within his range and under his influence. 

While the United States were celebrating their victory with thanksgivings 
and public festivities, their allies were triumphing at all the different points, 
simultaneously, at which hostilities had been entered upon. Becoming em- 
broiled with Holland, where the republican party had prevailed against the 
stadtholder, who was devoted to them, the English had waged war upon the 
Dutch colonies. Admiral Rodney had taken St. Eustache, the center of an 
immense trade ; he had pillaged the warehouses and laden his vessels with an 
enormous mass of merchandise ; the convoy which was conveying a part of 
the spoil to England was captured by Admiral La Motte-Piquet ; M. de Bouill(^ 
surprised the English garrison remaining at St. Eustache and recovered pos- 
session of the island, which was restored to the Dutch. They had just 
maintained gloriously, at Dogger Bank, their old maritime renown : " Officers 
and men all fought like lions," said Admiral Zouttman. The firing had not 
commenced until the two fleets were within pistol-shot. The ships on both 
sides were dismasted, scarcely in a condition to keep afloat ; the glory and the 
losses were equal, but the English admiral, Hyde Parker, was irritated and 
displeased; George UL went to see him on board his vessel: "I wish your 
Majesty younger seamen and better ships," said the old sailor, and he insisted 
on resigning. This was the only action fought by the Dutch during the war; 
they left to Adm.iral de Kersaint the job of recovering from the English their 
colonies of Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice on the coasts of Guiana. A 
small Franco-Spanish army was at the same time besieging Minorca ; the 
fleet was considerable, the English were ill-prepared ; they were soon obliged 
to shut themselves up in Fort St. Philip, and, finally, to surrender (February 
4th, 1782). 

As early as 1778, even before the maritime war had burst out in Europe, 
France had lost all that remained of her possessions on the Coromandel coast. 
Pondicherry, scarcely risen from its ruins, was besieged by the English, and 
had capitulated on the 17th of October, after a heroic resistance of forty 
days' open trenches. Since that day a Mussulman, Hyder Ali, conqueror of 
the Carnatic, had struggled alone in India against the power of England ; it 
*was around him that a group had been formed by the old soldiers of Bussy, 
and by the French who had escaped from the disaster of Pondicherry. It was 
with their aid that the able robber-chief, the crafty politician, had defended 
and consolidated the empire he had founded against that foreign dominion 
17 



258 FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. [1775 

which threatened the independence of his country. He had just suffered a 
series of reverses, and he was on the point of being forced to evacuate the 
Carnatic, and take refuge in his kingdom of Mysore when he heard, in the 
month of July, 1782, of the arrival of a French fleet commanded by M. de 
Suffren. Hyder AH had already been many times disappointed. The preced- 
ing year Admiral d'Orves had appeared on the Coromandel coast with a 
squadron ; the sultan had sent to meet him, urging him to land and attack 
Madras, left defenseless ; the admiral refused to risk, a single vessel or land a 
single man, and he returned, without striking a blow, to Ile-de-France. Ever 
indomitable and enterprising, Hyder Ali hoped better things of the new- 
comers : he was not deceived. Six months, however, had scarcely elapsed 
when he died, leaving to his son Tippoo Sahib affairs embroiled and allies en- 
feebled. At this news the Mahrattas, in revolt against England, hastened to 
make peace, and Tippoo Sahib, who had just seized Tanjore, was obliged to 
abandon his conquest, and go to the protection of Malabar. Ten thousand 
men only remained in the Carnatic to back the little corps of French ; these 
had resumed the offensive and were preparing to make fresh sallies, when it 
was known at Calcutta that the preliminaries of peace had been signed at 
Paris on the 9th of February. The English immediately proposed an armis- 
tice. The Siirveillante shortly afterward brought the same news, with orders 
for Suffren to return to France. India was definitively given up to the 
English, who restored to the French Pondicherry, Chandernugger, Mahe and 
Karikal, the last strips remaining- of that French dominion which had for a 
while been triumphant throughout the Peninsula. The feebleness and the 
vices of Louis XV.'s government weighed heavily upon the government of 
Louis XVI. in India as well as in France, and at Paris itself. 

It is to the honor of mankind and their consolation under great reverses 
that political checks and the inutility of their efforts do not obscure the glory 
of great men. M. de Suffren had just arrived at Paris ; he was in low spirits ; 
M. de Castries took him to Versailles. There Avas a numerous and brilliant 
court. On entering the guards' hall, " Gentlem.en," said the minister to the 
officers on duty, " this is M. de Suffren." Everybody rose, and the body- 
guards, forming an escort for the admiral, accompanied him to the king's 
chamber. His career was over; the last of the great sailors of the ancicn 
regime died on the 8th of December, 1788- 

While Hyder Ali and M. de Suffren were still disputing India with 
England, that power had just gained in Europe an important advantage in 
the eyes of public opinion as well as in respect of her supremacy at sea ; we 
allude to the town and fortress of Gibraltar which, after being invested by the 
Franco-Spanish army for a considerable time, was relieved and revictualled by 
Lord Howe in 1782. 

Peace was at hand, however ; all the belligerents were tired of the strife, 
the marquis of Rockingham was dead ; his ministry, after being broken up, 
had re-formed with less luster under the leadership of Lord Shelburne ; Wil- 
liam Pitt, Lord Chatham's second son, at that time twenty-two years of age, 



1789] FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. 259 

had a seat in the cabinet. Already negotiations for a general peace had be- 
gun at Paris, but Washington, who eagerly desired the end of the war, did 
not yet feel any confidence. On the 5th of December, at the opening of 
parliament, George III. announced in the speech from the throne that he had 
• offered to recognize the independence of the American colonies. " In thus 
admitting their separation from the crown of this kingdom, I have sacrificed 
all my desires to the -wishes and opinion of my people," said the king. "I 
humbly pray Almighty God that Great Britain may not feel the evils which 
may flow from so important a dismemberment of its empire, and that America 
may be a stranger to the calamities which have before now proved to the 
mother-country that monarchy is inseparable from the benefits of constitu- 
tional liberty. Religion, language, interests, affections may still form a bond 
of union between the two countries, and I will spare no pains or attention to 
promote it." 

To the exchange of conquests between France and England was added 
the cession to France of the island of Tobago and of the Senegal 
river with its dependencies. The territory of Pondicherry and Karikal 
received some augmentation. For the first time for more than a hundred 
years the English renounced the humiliating conditions so often demanded 
on the subject of the harbor of Dunkerque. Spain saw herself confirmed 
in her conquest of the Floridas and of the island of Minorca. Holland 
recovered all her possessions, except Negapatam. 

France came out exhausted from the struggle, but relieved in her 
own eyes as well as those of Europe from the humiliation inflicted 
upon her by the disastrous Seven Years' War, and by the treaty of 
1763. She saw triumphant the cause she had upheld, and her enemies 
sorrow-stricken at the dismemberment they had suffered. It was a triumph 
for her arms and for the generous impulse which had prompted her to 
support a legitimate but for a long while doubtful enterprise. A fresh 
element, however, had come to add itself to the germs of disturbance, 
already so fruitful, which were hatching within her. She had prompted 
the foundation of a repubhc based upon principles of absolute right^ 
the government had given way to the ardent sympathy of the nation 
for a people emancipated from a long yoke by its deliberate will 
and its indomitable energy. France felt her heart still palpitating from 
the efforts she had witnessed and shared on behalf of American freedom ; 
the unreflecting hopes of a blind emulation were already agitating many 
a mind. " In all states," said Washington, " there are inflammable materials 
which a single spark may kindle." In 1783, on the morrow of the 
American war, the inflammable materials everywhere accumulated in France 
were already providing means for that immense conflagration in the 
midst of which the country well-nigh perished, 

After a few inefificient and useless ministers, Necker had been called 
to the important post so ably filled by Turgot. Public opinion was 
favorable to him, his promotion was well received, it presented, however. 



26o FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. [1775 

great difficulties : he had been a banker, and hitherto the comptrollers- 
general had all belonged to the class of magistrates or superintendents; 
he was a Protestant, and, as such, could not hold any office. The clergy 
were in commotion ; they tried certain remonstrances. The opposition 
of the Church, however, closed to the new minister an important opening ; 
at first director of the treasury, then director-general of finance, M. Necker 
never received the title of comptroller-general, and was not admitted to 
the council. From the outset, with a disinterestedness not devoid of osten- 
tation, he had declined the salary attached to his functions. The courtiers 
looked at one another in astonishment. 

This was for awhile the feeling throughout France. " No bank- 
ruptcies, no new imposts, no loans," M. Turgot had said, and had 
looked to economy alone for the resources necessary to restore the 
finances. Bolder and less scrupulous, M. Necker, who had no idea of 
having recourse to either bankruptcy or imposts, made unreserved use 
of the system of loans. During the five years that his ministry lasted, the 
successive loans he contracted amounted to nearly five hundred million livres. 
There was no security given to insure its repayment to the lenders. The 
mere confidence felt in the minister's ability and honesty had caused the 
money to flow into the treasury. 

M. Necker did not stop there : a foreigner by birth, he felt no 
respect for the great tradition of French administration ; practised in 
the handling of funds, he had conceived as to the internal government 
of the finances theories opposed to the old system ; the superintendents 
established awhile ago by Richelieu had become powerful in the central 
administration as well as in the provinces, and the comptroller-general was 
in the habit of accounting with them ; they nearly all belonged to old 
and notable families ; some of them had won the public regard and 
esteem. The posts at court likewise underwent reform : the courtiers 
saw at one blow the improper sources of their revenues in the finan- 
cial administration cut off, and obsolete and ridiculous appointments, to 
which numerous pensions were attached, reduced. Their discontent was 
becoming every day more noisy, without as yet shaking the credit of 
M. Necker. He thought the moment had come for giving public opinion 
the summons of which he recognized the necessity; he felt himself 
shaken at court, weakened in the regard of M. de Maurepas, who was 
still powerful in spite of his great age and jealous of him as he had 
been of M. Turgot; he had made up his mind, he said, to iet the 
nation know how its affairs had been managed, and in the early days 
of the year 1781 he published his Compte rendu au roi. 

It was a bold innovation; hitherto the administration of the finances' 
had been carefully concealed from the eyes of the public as the greatest 
secret in the affairs of State ; for the first time the nation was called 
upon to take cognizance of the position of the public estate and, conse- 
quently, pass judgment upon its administration. The very reforms brought 



1789] FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. 261 

about by the minister rendered his fall more imminent every day. He 
had driven into coalition against him the powerful influences of the 
courtiers, of the old families whose hereditary destination was ofifice in 
the administration, and of the parliament everywhere irritated and anxious. 
He had lessened the fortunes and position of the two former classes, 
and his measures tended to strip the magistracy of the authority where of 
they were so jealous; obliged finally to send in his resignation (1781), he was 
replaced by M. de Calonne. 

It was court-influence that carried the day and, in the court, that 
of the queen, prompted by her favorite, Madame de Polignac. Tenderly 
attached to his wife, who had at last given him a son, Louis XVI., 
delivered from the predominant influence of M. de Maurepas, was yielding, 
almost unconsciously, to a new power. Marie Antoinette, who had long 
held aloof from politics, henceforth changed her part ; at the instigation 
of the friends whom she honored with a perhaps excessive intimacy, she 
began to take an important share in affairs, a share which was often 
exaggerated by public opinion, more and more hard upon her every day. 

In the home-circle of the royal family, the queen had not found 
any intimate friend: the king's aunts had never taken to her ; the crafty 
ability of the count of Provence and the giddiness of the count of 
Artois seemed in the prudent eye of Maria Theresa to be equally dangerous; 
Madame Elizabeth, the heroic and pious companion of the, evil days, 
was still a mere child ; already the duke of Chartres, irreligious and 
debauched, displayed toward the queen who kept him at a distance 
symptoms of a bitter rancor which was destined to bear fruit ; Marie 
Antoinette, accustomed to a numerous family, affectionately united, sought 
friends who could "love her for herself," as she used to say. An illusive 
hope, in one of her rank, for which she was destined to pay dearly. 
She formed an attachment to the young princess of Lamballe, daughter- 
in-law of the duke of Penthievre, a widow at twenty years of age, 
affectionate and gentle, for whom she revived the post of lady-superin- 
tendent, abolished by Mary Leczinska. The court was in commotion, 
and the public murmured ; the queen paid no heed, absorbed as she was 
in the new delights of friendship ; the intimacy, in which there was 
scarcely any inequality, with the princess of Lamballe, was soon followed 
by a more perilous affection ; the countess Jules de Polignac, who was 
generally detained in the country by the narrowness of her means, 
appeared at court on the occasion of a festival; the queen was pleased 
with her, made her remain and loaded her and her family, not only 
with favors but with unbounded and excessive familiarity. Finding the 
court-circles a constraint and an annoyance, Marie Antoinette became 
accustomed to seek in the drawing-room of Madame de Polignac amuse- 
ments and a freedom which led before long to sinister gossip. Those 
who were admitted to this royal intimacy were not always prudent or 
discreet, they abused the confidence as well as the general kindness of 



262 FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. [i775 

the queen ; their ambition and their cupidity were equally concerned in 
urging Marie Antoinette to take in the government a part for which 
she was not naturally inclined. M. de Calonne was intimate with Madame 
de Polignac ; she, created a duchess and appointed governess to the 
children of France (the royal children), was all-powerful with her friend 
the queen ; she dwelt upon the talents of M, de Calonne, the extent 
and fertility of his resources; M. de Vergennes was won over, and the 
office of comptroller-general, which had but lately been still discharged 
with luster by M, Turgot and M. Necker, fell on the 30th of October, 
1784, into the hands of M. de Calonne. 

Discredited from the very first by a dishonorable action, he had invariably 
managed to get his vices forgotten, thanks to the charms of a brilliant and 
fertile wit. Prodigal and irregular as superintendent of Lille, he imported 
into the comptroller-generalship habits and ideas opposed to all the principles 
of Louis XVL "The reputation of M. de Calonne," says M. Necker in his 
memoires, " was a contrast to the morality of Louis XVL, and I know not by 
what argumentation, by what ascendancy such a prince was induced to give 
a place in his council to a magistrate who was certainly found agreeable in the 
most elegant society of Paris, but whose levity and principles were dreaded by 
the whole of France. Money was lavished, largesses were multiplied, there 
was no declining to be good-natured or complaisant, economy was made the 
object of ridicule, it was daringly asserted that immensity of expenditure, 
animating circulation, was the true principle of credit." 

If the first steps of M. de Calonne dismayed men of foresight and of 
experience in affairs, the public was charmed with them, no less than the 
courtiers. The dail des fernics was re-established, the Caisse d'escompte had 
resumed payment, the stock-holders {rentier's) received their quarters' arrears, 
the loan whereby the comptroller-general met all expenses had reached 
eleven per cent. 

The captivation was general, the blindness seemed to be so likewise ; a 
feverish impulse carried people away into all new-fangled ways, serious or 
frivolous. Mesmer brought from Germany his mysterious revelations in 
respect of problems as yet unsolved by science, and pretended to cure all 
diseases around the magnetic battery ; the adventurer Cagliostro, embellished 
with the title of count and lavishing gold by handfuls, bewitched court and 
city. At the same time splendid works in the most diverse directions main- 
tained at the topmost place in the world that scientific genius of France 
which the great minds of the seventeenth century had revealed to Europe. 
The ladies of fashion crowded to the brilliant lectures of Fourcroy. The 
princes of pure science, M. de Lagrange, M. de Laplace, M. Monge, did not 
disdain to wrench themselves from their learned calculations in order to 
second the useful labors of Lavoisier. Bold voyagers were scouring the 
world, pioneers of those enterprises of discovery which had appeared for a 
while abandoned during the seventeenth century, M, de Bougainville had 
just completed the round of the world, and the English captain, Cook, during 



1789] FRANCE.-^LOUIS XVI. 263 

the war which covered all seas with hostile ships, had been protected by 
generous sympathy. The name of another distinguished sailor, M. de La 
Peyrouse, must not be forgotten ; nor should we leave unnoticed the first 
attempts in aerial locomotion made by MM. de Montgolfier and Tilatre de 
Rozier. 

So many scientific explorations, so many new discoveries of nature's 
secrets were seconded and celebrated by an analogous movement in literature. 
Rousseau had led the way to impassioned admiration of the beauties of 
nature ; Bernardin de St. Pierre had just published his Etudes dc la NaUcrc ; 
he had in the press his Paul ct Virginie ; the Abbe Delille was reading his 
Jardin, and M. de St. Lambert his Saisons. In their different phases and 
according to their special instincts, all minds, scholarly or political, literary or 
philosophical, were tending to the same end and pursuing the same attempt. 
It was nature which men wanted to discover or recover: scientific laws and 
natural rights divided men's souls between them. Buffon was still alive, and 
the great sailors were every day enriching with their discoveries the Jardin du 
Roi ; the physicists and the chemists, in the wake of Lavoisier, were giving to 
science a language intelligible to common folks ; the juris-consults were 
attempting to reform the rigors of criminal legislation at the same time with 
the abuses they had entailed, and Beaumarchais was bringing on the boards 
his Maj'iage de Figaro. 

Figaro ridiculed everything with a dangerously pungent vigor ; the days 
were coming when the pleasantry was to change into insults. Already public 
opinion was becoming hostile to the queen : she was accused of having 
remained devoted to the interests of her German family; the people were 
beginning to call her tJic Austrian. This direful malevolence on the part of 
public opinion, springing from a few acts of imprudence, and fomented by a 
long series of calumnies, burst forth on the occasion of a scandalous and 
grievous occurrence ; we mean the affair of the diamond necklace, which led 
to the arrest of the cardinal De Rohan. 

M. de Calonne had taken little part in the excitement which the trial of 
Cardinal Rohan caused in court and city ; he was absorbed by the incessantly 
recurring difficulties presented by the condition of the Treasury; speculation 
had extended to all classes of society ; loans succeeded loans, everywhere 
there were formed financial companies, without any resources to speak of, 
"speculating on credit. Parliament began to be alarmed, and enregistcred no 
more credits save with repugnance. In view of the stress at the Treasury, of 
growing discontent^ of vanished 'illusions, the comptroller-general meditated 
convoking the Assembly of Notables, the feeble resource of the old French 
kingship before the days of pure monarchy, an expedient more insufficient 
and more dangerous than the most far-seeing divined after the lessons of the 
philosophers and the continuous abasement of the kingly majesty. 

The convocation of the notables brought about the views of the minister, 
who had staked his popularity upon it (1787); he was succeeded by Lomenie 
de Brienne, a minister who "had nothing but bad moves to make," says M. 



264 FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. [1775 

Mignet. Three edicts touching the trade in grain, forced labor and the 
provincial assemblies were first sent up to the parliament and enregistered 
without any difficulty ; the two edicts touching the stamp-tax and equal 
assessment of the impost were to meet with more hinderance ; the latter at 
any rate united the sympathies of all the partisans of genuine reforms ; the 
edict touching the stamp-tax was by itself and first submitted for the approval 
of the magistrates : they rejected it, asking, like the notables, for a communi- 
cation as to the state of finance. At the same time the parliament demanded 
the impeachment of M. de Calonne ; he took fright and sought refuge in 
England. The mob rose in Paris, imputing to the court the prodigalities 
with which the parliament reproached the late comptroller-general. Sad 
symptom of the fatal progress of public opinion ! The cries heretofore 
raised against the queen under the name of Austrian were now uttered 
against Madame Deficit, pending the time when the fearful title of Madame 
Veto would give place in its turn to the sad name of the woman Capet given 
to the victim of October i6th, 1793. 

The king summoned the parliament to Versailles, and on the 6Lh of 
August, 1787, the edicts touching the stamp-tax and territorial subvention 
were enregistered in bed of justice. The parliament had protested in advance 
against this act of royal authority, which it called " a phantom of delibera- 
tion." On the 13th of August, the court declared " the registration of the 
edicts null and without effect, incompetent to authorize the collection of 
imposts opposed to all principles ; " this resolution was sent to all the 
seneschalties and bailiwicks in the district. It was in the name of the 
privilege of the two upper orders that the parliament of Paris contested the 
royal edicts and made appeal to the supreme jurisdiction of the States-general ; 
the people did not see it, they took out the horses of M. d'Espremesnil, whose 
fiery eloquence had won over a great number of his colleagues, and he was 
carried in triumph. On the 15th of August, the parliament was sent away to 
Troyes, to be, however, recalled a little more than a month later. M. de 
Brienne hoped thus to obtain a loan of 420,000,000, which was to be raised 
in the course of five years. The king held a bed of justice at Versailles, and 
insisted upon the registration of the necessary edicts ; notwithstanding the 
efforts of M. de Malesherbes and the duke of Nivernais, the parliament 
inscribed on the registers that it was not to be understood to take any part 
in the transcription here ordered of gradual and progressive loans for the 
years 1788, 1789, 1790, 1791 and 1792. In reply, the duke of Orleans was 
banished to Villers-Cotterets, while councillors Freteau and Sabatier, who 
had made themselves conspicuous by their opposition, were arrested and taken 
to a state-prison. 

The contest extended as it grew hotter; everywhere the parliaments 
took up the quarrel of the court of Paris ; the formation of the provincial 
assemblies furnished new centers of opposition ; the petty noblesse made 
alliance with the magistracy, the antagonism of principles became every day 



17S9] FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. 265 

more evident ; after the five months elapsed since the royal session, the 
parhament was still protesting against the violence done to it. 

The indiscretion of a printer made M. d'Espr^mesnil acquainted with the 
great designs which were in preparation; at his instigation the parliament 
issued a declaration as to the reciprocal rights and duties of the monarch and 
the nation. " France," said the resolution, " is a monarchy hereditary from 
male to male, governed by the king following the laws; it has for funda- 
mental laws the nation's right to freely grant subsidies by means of the 
States-general, convoked and composed according to regulation, the customs 
and capitulations of the provinces, the irremovability of the magistrates, the 
right of the courts to enregister edicts, and that of each citizen to be judged 
only by his natural judges, without liability ever to be arrested arbitrarily." 
"The magistrates must cease to exist before the nation ceases to be free," 
said a second protest. 

Bold and defiant in its grotesque mixture of the ancient principles of the 
magistracy with the novel theories of philosophy, the resolution of the 
parliament was quashed by the king. Orders were given to arrest M. 
d'Espr^mesnil and a young councillor, Goislard de Montsabert, who had 
played also an active part in the spirited resistance to the orders of the 
court. The former was taken to the island of St. Marguerite, and the latter 
imprisoned at Pierre Encise. 

Notwithstanding his promise to convoke the States-general for the 1st of 
May, 1789, M. de Brienne became more and more unpopular, and disturb- 
ances broke out in several points of the kingdom. Legal in Normandy, 
violent in Brittany, tumultuous in Beam, the parliamentary protests took a 
politic and methodical form in Dauphiny. An insurrection among the populace 
of Grenoble, soon supported by the villagers from the mountains, had at first 
flown to arms at the sound of the tocsin. The members of the parliament, 
on the point of leaving the city, had been detained by force, and their 
carriages had been smashed. The troops offered little resistance ; an entry 
was effected into the house of the governor, the duke of Clermont-Tonnerre, 
and, with an axe above his head, the insurgents threatened to hang him to 
the chandelier in his drawing-room if he did not convoke the parliament. 
Ragged rufifians ran to the magistrates, and compelled them to meet in the 
sessions-hall. The members of parliament succeeded with great difificulty in 
pacifying the mob. As soon as they found themselves free, they hastened 
away into exile. Other hands had taken up their quarrel. A certain number 
of members of the three orders met at the town hall, and, on their private 
authority, convoked for the 2 1st of July the special States of Dauphiny, 
suppressed awhile before by Cardinal Richelieu. 

The duke of Clermont-Tonnerre had been superseded by old Marshal 
Vaux, rough and ready. He had at his disposal twenty thousand men. 
Scarcely had he arrived at Grenoble when he wrote to Versailles, " It is too 
late," he said. The prerogatives of royal authority >vere maintained, 
however. The marshal granted a meeting of the States-provincial, but he 



266 FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. [';;5 

required permission to be asked of him. He forbade the assembly to be held 
at Grenoble. It was in the castle of Vizille, a former residence of the 
dauphins, that the three orders of Dauphiny met, closely united together in 
wise and patriotic accord. The archbishop of Vienne, Lefranc de Pompignan, 
brother of the poet, lately the inveterate foe of Voltaire, an ardently and 
sincerely pious man, led his clergy along the most liberal path ; the noblesse 
of the sword, mingled with the noblesse of the robe, voted blindly all the 
resolutions of the third estate ; these were suggested by the real head of the 
assembly, M. Mounier, judge-royal of Grenoble, a friend of M. Necker's, an 
enlightened, loyal, honorable man, destined ere long to make his name known 
over the whole of France by his courageous resistance to the outbursts of the 
National Assembly. Unanimously the three orders presented to the king 
their claims to the olden liberties of the province; they loudly declared, 
however, that they were prepared for all sacrifices and aspired to nothing but 
the common rights of all Frenchmen. The double representation of the 
third in the estates of Dauphiny was voted without contest, as well" as equal 
assessment of the impost intended to replace forced labor. Throughout the 
whole province the most perfect order had succeeded the first manifestations 
of popular irritation. 

Meanwhile the Treasury was found to be empty; all the resources were 
exhausted, disgraceful tricks had despoiled the hospitals and the poor ; credit 
was used up, the payments of the State were backward ; the discount-bank 
{caissc d' escompte) was authorized to refuse to give coin. A decree of August 
8th, 1788, announced that the States-general would be convoked May ist, 
1789 ; the re-establishment of the plenary court was suspended to that date. 

On the 25th of August, 1788, the king sent for M. Necker. For an 
instant his return to power had the effect of restoring some hope to the most 
far-sighted. On his coming into of^ce the treasury Avas empty, there was no 
scraping together as much as five thousand livres. The need was pressing, 
the harvests were bad; the credit and the able resources of the great 
financier sufficed for all ; the funds went up thirty per cent, in one day ; 
certain capitalists made advances, the chamber of the notaries of Paris paid 
six millions into the treasury, M. Necker lent two millions out of his private 
fortune. The great financial talents of the minister, his probity, his courage, 
had caused illusions as to his political talents ; useful in his day and in his 
degree, the new minister was no longer equal to the task. The distresses of 
the treasury had powerfully contributed to bring about, to develop the 
political crisis ; the public cry for the States-general had arisen in a great 
degree from the deficit ; but henceforth financial resources did not suffice to 
conjure away the danger ; the discount-bank had resumed payment, the State 
honored its engagements, the phantom of bankruptcy disappeared from 
before the frightened eyes of stockholders ; nevertheless the agitation did not 
subside, minds were full of higher and more tenacipus concernments. Every 
gaze was turned toward the States-general. Scarcely was M. Necker in 
power, when a royal proclamation, sent to the parliament returning to 



1/89] FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. 267 

Paris, announced the convocation of the Assembly for the month of January, 
1789. 

The States-general themselves had become a topic of the most lively 
discussion. Amid the embarrassment of his government, and in order to 
throw a sop to the activity of the opposition, Brienne had declared his doubts 
and his deficiency of enlightenment as to the form to be given to the 
deliberations of that ancient assembly, always convoked at the most critical 
junctures of the national history, and abandoned for one hundred and 
seventy-five years past. In the wake of the king's appeal, a flood of tracts 
and pamphlets had inundated Paris and the provinces : some devoted to the 
defense of ancient usages ; the most part intended to prove that the consti- 
tution of the olden monarchy of France contained in principle all the 
political liberties which were but asking permission to soar ; some finally, 
bolder and the most applauded of all, like that of Count d'Entraigues', Note 
on the States-general, their rights and the manner of convoking them, and that 
of the Abbe Sieyes, What is the third estate f Sieyes' pamphlet had already 
sold to the extent of thirty thousand copies ; the development of his ideas 
was an audacious commentary upon his modest title. " What is the third 
estate ? " said the able revolutionist : " Nothing. What ought it to be ? 
Everything." It was hoisting the flag against the two upper orders. 

The whole of France was fever-stricken. The agitation was contra- 
dictory and confused, a medley of confidence and fear, joy and rage, 
everywhere violent and contagious. This time again Dauphiny showed an 
example of politic and wise behavior. The preparatory assemblies were 
tumultuous in many spots : in Provence as well aa in Brittany they became 
violent. In his province, Mirabeau was the cause or pretext for the troubles. 
Born at Bignon, near Nemours, on the 9th of March, 1749, well known 
already for his talent as a writer and orator as well as for the startling 
irregularities of his life, he was passionately desirous of being elected to, the 
States-general. "I don't think I shall be useless there," he wrote to his 
friend Cerruti. Nowhere, however, was his character worse than in Provence : 
there people had witnessed his dissensions with his father as well as with his 
wife. Public contempt, a just punishment, for his vices, caused his admission 
into the States-provincial to be unjustly opposed. The assembly was 
composed exclusively of nobles in possession of fiefs, of ecclesiastical digni- 
taries and of a small number of municipal oflficers. It claimed to elect the 
deputies to the States-general according to the ancient usages. Mirabeau's 
common sense, as well as his great and powerful genius, revolted against the 
absurd theories of the privileged ; he overwhelmed them with his terrible 
eloquence, while adjuring them to renounce their abuseful and obsolete 
rights ; he scared them by his forceful and striking hideousness. 

Mirabeau was shut out from the States-provincial, and soon adopted 
eagerly by the third estate. Elected at Marseilles as well as at Aix for the 
States-general, he quieted, in these two cities successively, riots occasioned by 
the dearness of bread. The people, in their enthusiasm, thronged upon him. 



268 FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. [1775 

accepting his will without a murmur when he restored to theii* proper figure 
provisions lowered in price through the terror of the authorities. The petty- 
noblesse and the lower provincial clergy had everywhere taken the side of the 
third estate. Mirabeau was triumphant : " I have been, am, and shall be to 
the last," he exclaimed, " the man for public liberty, the than for the consti- 
tution." 

The day of meeting of the States-general was at hand. Almost every- 
where the elections had been quiet, and the electors less numerous than had 
been anticipated. We know what indifference and lassitude may attach to 
the exercise of rights which would not be willingly renounced ; ignorance and 
inexperience kept away from the primary assemblies many working men and 
peasants ; the middle class alone proceeded in mass to the elections. The 
irregular slowness of the preparatory operations had retarded the convoca- 
tions ; for three months the agitation attendant upon successive assemblies 
kept France in suspense. Paris was still voting on the 28th of April, 1789; 
the mob thronged the streets ; all at once the rumor ran that an attack was 
being made on the house of an ornamental-paper maker in the faubourg St. 
Antoine, named R^veillon. Starting as a simple journeyman, this man had 
honestly made his fortune ; he was kind to those who worked in his shops : 
he was accused, nevertheless, among the populace, of having declared that a 
journeyman could live on fifteen sous a day. The day before threats had 
been leveled at him ; he had asked for protection from the police ; thirty men 
had been sent to him. The madmen who were swarming around his house 
and stores soon got the better of so weak a guard, everything was destroyed ; 
the rioters rushed to the, archbishop's, there was voting going on there; 
they expected to find R6veillon, whom they wanted to murder. They were 
repulsed by the battalions of the French and Swiss guards. More than two 
hundred were killed. Money was found in their pockets. The parliament 
suspended its prosecutions against the ringleaders of so many crimes. The 
government, impotent and disarmed, as timid in presence of this riot as in 
presence of opposing parties, at last came before the States-general, but blown 
about by the contrary winds of excited passions, without any guide and with- 
out fixed resolves, without any firm and compact nucleus in the midst of a 
new and unknown Assembly, without confidence in the troops, who were 
looked upon, however, as a possible and last resort. 

The States-general were presented to the king on the 2d of May, 1789. 
It seemed as if the two upper orders, by a prophetic instinct of their ruin, 
wanted, for the last time, to make a parade of their privileges. Introduced 
without delay to the king, they left, in front of the palace, the deputies of the 
third estate to wait in the rain. The latter were getting angry, and already 
beginning to clamor, when the gates were opened to them. In the magnifi- 
cent procession on the 4th, when the three orders accompanied the king to 
the church of St. Louis at Versailles, the laced coats and decorations of the 
nobles, the superb vestments of the prelates easily eclipsed the modest cassocks 
of the country priests as well as the somber costume imposed by ceremonial 



1789] FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. 269 

upon the deputies of the third estate ; the bishop of Nancy, M. de la Fare, 
maintained the traditional distinctions even in the sermon he delivered before 
the king. The untimely applause which greeted the bishop's words was 
excited by the picture he drew of the misery in the country places exhausted 
by the rapacity of the fiscal agents. At this striking solemnity, set off with 
all the pomp of the past, animated with all the hopes of the future, the eyes 
of the public sought out, amid the somber mass of deputies of the third 
(estate) those whom their deeds, good or evil, had already made celebrated : 
Malouet, Mounier, Mirabeau, the last greeted wath a murmur which was for a 
long while yet to accompany his name. 

The opening of the session took place on the 5th of May. The royal T 
procession had been saluted by the crowd with repeated and organized shouts 
of '' Hurrah ! for the duke of Orleans ! " which had disturbed and agitated the 
queen. " The king," says Marmontel, " appeared with simple dignity, without 
pride, without timidity, wearing on his features the impress of the goodness 
which he had in his heart, a little affected by the spectacle and by the feclino-s 
which the deputies of a faithful nation ought to inspire in its kin-T." His 
speech was short, dignified, affectionate, and without political purport. With 
more of pomp and detail, the minister confined himself within the same limits. 
The mode of action corresponded with this insufficient language. Crushed 
beneath the burden of past defaults and errors, the government tendered its 
abdication, in advance, into the hands of that mightily bewildered Assembly 
it had just convoked. The king had left the verification of powers to the 
States-general themselves. M. Necker confined himself to pointing out the 
possibility of common action between the three orders, recommending the 
deputies to examine those questions discreetly. 

It was amid a chaos of passions, wills and desires, legitimate or culpable, 
patriotic or selfish, that there was, first of all, propounded the question of 
verification of powers. Prompt and peremptory on the part of the noblesse, 
hesitating and cautious on the part of the clergy, the opposition of the two 
upper orders to any common action irritated the third estate ; its appeals had 
ended in nothing but conferences broken off, then resumed at the king's 
desire, and evidently and painfully to no purpose. " By an inconceivable 
oversight on the part of M. Necker in the local apportionment of the building 
appointed for the assembly of the States-general, there was the throne-room, 
or room of the three orders, a room for the noblesse, one for the clergy, and 
none for the commons, who remained, quite naturally, established in the 
States-room, the largest, the most ornate, and all fitted up with tribunes for 
the spectators who took possession of the public boxes {logcs comvmncs) in the 
room. When it was perceived that this crowd of strangers and their plaudits 
only excited the audacity of the more violent speakers, all the consequences 
of this installation were felt. The want of foresight and the nervous hesita- 
tion of the ministers had placed the third estate in a novel and a strong situa- 
tion. Installed officially in the States-room, it seemed to be at once master 
of the position, waiting for the two upper orders to come to it. Mirabeau 



270 FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. [1775 

saw this with that rapid insight into effects and consequences which consti- 
tutes, to a considerable extent, the orator's genius. The third estate had 
taken possession, none could henceforth dispute with it its privileges, and it 
was the defense of a right that had been won which was to inspire the fiery 
orator with his mighty audacity, when on the 23d of June, toward evening, 
after the miserable affair of the royal session, the marquis of Dreux-Breze 
came back into the room to beg the deputies of the third estate to withdraw. 
The king's order was express, but already certain nobles and a large number 
of ecclesiastics had joined the deputies of the commons ; their definitive 
victory on the 27th of June and the fusion of the three orders were foreshad- 
owed ; Mirabeau rose at the entrance of the grand-master of the ceremonies : 
" Go," he shouted, " and tell those who send you, that we are here by the will 
of the people, and that we shall not budge save at the point of the bayonet." 
This was the beginning of revolutionary violence. 

On the 1 2th of June the battle began ; the calling over of the bailiwicks 
took place in the States-room. The third estate sat alone. At each province, 
each chief place, each roll {proccs-vcrbal), the secretaries repeated in a loud 
voice, " Gentlemen of the clergy ? None present. Gentlemen of the noblesse ? 
None present." Certain parish priests alone had the courage to separate from 
their order and submit their powers for verification. All the deputies of the 
third (estate) at once gave them precedence. The day of persecution was not 
yet come. 

Legality still stood, the third estate maintained a proud moderation, the 
border was easily passed, a name was sufficient. 

The title of States-general was oppressive to the new Assembly, it 
recalled the distinction between the orders as well as the humble posture of 
the third estate heretofore. " This is the only true name," exclaimed Abbe 
Si^yes : " Assembly of acknowledged and verified representatives of the 
nation." This was a contemptuous repudiation of the two upper orders. 
Mounier replied with another definition : " Legitimate assembly of the 
majority among the deputies of the nation, deliberating in the absence of the 
duly invited minority." The subtleties of metaphysics and politics are 
powerless to take the popular fancy. Mirabeau felt it : " Let us call ourselves 
representatives of the people f '' he. shouted. For this ever fatal name he 
claimed the kingly sanction : " I hold the king's veto so necessary," said the 
great orator, " that, if he had it not, I would rather live at Constantinople 
than in France. Yes, I protest, I know of nothing more terrible than a sover- 
eign aristocracy of six hundred persons who, having the power to declare 
themselves to-morrow irremovable and the next day hereditary, would end, 
like the aristocracies of all countries in the world, by swooping down upon 
everything." 

An obscure deputy here suggested during the discussion the name of 
National Assembly, often heretofore employed to designate the States-general ; 
Sieyes took it up, rejecting the subtle and carefully prepared definitions : " I 
am for the amendment of M. Legrand," said he, " and I propose the title of 



1/89] FRANCE.— LOUIS XVI. 271 

National Assembly^ Four hundred and ninety-one voices against ninety 
adopted this simple and superb title. In contempt of the two upper orders 
of the State, the national assembly was constituted. The decisive step was 
taken toward the French revolution. 

During the early days, in the heat of a violent discussion, Barrere had 
exclaimed, " You are summoned to recommence history." It was an arro- 
gant mistake. For more than eighty years modern France has been prose- 
cuting laboriously and in open day the work which had been slowly forming 
within the dark womb of olden France. In the almighty hands of eternal 
God a people's history is interrupted and recommenced never. 

Note : The history of M. Guizot ends at this point, and the succeeding chapters form a continua- 
tion of the line of history to the present time, prepared with much care from the most reliable sources. 



NOTE ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY KALENDAR. 

In reading the French historians of the period from the declaration of the Republic in 1792 to the 
end of 1805 we find the dates of events not given according to the common kalendar, l)ut according to 
the most puzzling of all systems of chronology, the Republican kalendar adopted by the Convention. 
In our own history we give the dates, thus found in French writers, according to the Gregorian 
Kalendar ; but it may be useful here to present a complete view of the Revolutionary Kalendar wliich 
view we adopt, with some abridgment, from "The English Cyclopedia of Arts and Sciences." 

The Convention decreed, on the 24th of November, 1793, that the common era should be abolished 
in all civil affairs: that the new French era should commence from the foundation of the Republic, 
namely, on the 22d of September, 1792, on the day of the true autumnal equinox, when the sun entered 
Libra at gh i8m 30s in the morning, according to the meridian of Paris; that each year should begin at 
the midnight of the day on which the true autumnal equinox falls ; and that the first year of the French 
Republic had begun on the midnight of the 22d of September and terminated on the midnight between 
the 2ist and 22d of September, 1793. To produce a correspondence between the seasons and the civil 
year it was decreed, that the fourth year of the Republic should be the first sextile, or leap year ; that a 
sixth complementary day should be added to it, and that it should terminate the first Franciade ; that 
the sextile or leap-year, which they called an Olympic year, should take place every four years, and 
should mark the close of each Franciade : that the first, second and third centurial years, namelv, 100, 
200, and 300 of the Republic should be common, and that the fourth centurial year, namely, 400, should 
be sextile ; and that this should be the case every fourth century until the 40th, which should terminate 
with a common year. The year was divided into tv.'elve months of thirty days each, with five additional 
days at the end, which were celebrated as festivals, and which obtained the name of " Sansculottides." 
Instead of the months being divided into weeks, they consisted of three parts, called decades, of ten 
days each. It is, however, to be observed that the French Republicans rarely adopted the decades in, 
dating their letters, or in conversation, but used the number of the day of each month of their kalendar. 
The Republican kalendar was first used on the 26th of November, 1793, ^'^^ ^^''^s discontinued on the 3rst 
of December, 1805, when the Gregorian was resumed. 

The decrees of the National Convention, which fixed the new mode of reckoning, were both vague 
and insufficient. A French work, " Concordance des Calendriers Republicain et Gregorian," par L. 
Rondonneau, puts every day of every year opposite to its day of the Gregorian kalendar. It is to actual 
usage that we must appeal to know what the decrees do not prescribe — namely, the position of the 
leap-vears. The following list, made from the work above mentioned, must be used as a correction of 
tlie usual accounts, in which the position of the leap-years is not sufficiently regarded. 

Sept. 



An I. begins 22, 1792 

II. " 22, 1793 

Sext. III. " 22, 1794 

IV. " 23, 1795 

V. " 22, 1796 

VI. " 22, 1797 

Sext. VII. " 22, 1798 

VIII. " 23, 1799 



Se-xt. IX. begins 

X. 
Sext. XI. 
An XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 





Sept. 


23. 


1800 


23. 


iSoi 


23. 


1S02 


24, 


1803 


23. 


1804 


2.3, 


1805 



ended 31st December, 1S05. 



XYI. 



rTHE EEIGN OF TEEEOS-EALL 
OF EOBESFIEREE. 




'HE excitement was at its height when the National 
Assembly proceeded to repeal law after law, and 
reorganize the government of France. The bold 
declaration of the inviolability of its members by the 
Assembly led to measures of retaliation by the king. 
A large body of troops were ordered in readiness and 
• stationed in various parts of the city of Paris. The 
ministry was dissolved and Necker was banished. The hesi- 
tation of the king at the outset and the firm stand which he 
afterward took, changing again at the immense pressure brought 
to bear upon him, were all disastrous to the Royalists. The 
clamors of the National Assembly, urged on by the shouts of 
the infuriated mob, compelled Louis to recall his banished 
minister, Necker, but still the troops were under arms. The 
first blood shed was on the 12th of July. The insurrection 
now assumed the proportions of a revolution, and the eve of 
that fearful Reign of Terror which swept over France had 
come. Life and property were insecure for a moment. The rabble could 
not bear to wait. 

The National Guards were convoked on the 13th of July. All Paris was 
in the tumult of excitement. Whenever any one who was suspected of being 
unfavorable to the change made his appearance on the street the shout at 
once arose, *' Away to the lamp," and willing hands were ready to execute 
the sentence by hanging the poor victim to the nearest lamp-post. 

On the 14th the multitude, headed by the National Guard, rushed to the 
Bastile and completely demolished its walls. But few State prisoners were 
found there, for Louis XV. had released nearly all the prisoners held by his 
grandfather. The ranks of the National Guard were quickly filled with 
recruits from every grade of the third estate. The excitement rapidly spread 
to all the provinces, and very soon National Guards and revolutionary councils 
were convoked in them. 

The National Assembly began with a high hand, and on the 4th of : 
August the members passed an edict abrogating forever all feudal and 



1794] FRANCE.— THE REVOLUTION. 



273 



manorial rights, and they at the same time gave solemn expression of their 
declaration of equal rights. Whereupon the royal princes and all the nobles 
who could effect their escape did so. The royal family made an attempt to 
follow their example, but did not succeed, and then they tried to conciliate 
the people by a feigned assumption of republican principles. On the 5th of 
October the excited rabble, accompanied by numbers of the National Guard, 
surged up to the very gates of the palace at Versailles, that most splendid of 
palaces, upon which Louis XIV. had spent so much, and whose iron gates 
looked down the long avenue of trees leading from Paris, a memorial how 
little pity for their people the two last kings had had. It was the less wonder 
that the mob of Paris believed that Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had the 
same hard hearts, and were willingly letting them starve. They came and 
filled the courts of the palace, shouting and yelling for the queen to show 
herself. She came out on the balcony, with her daughter of twelve years old 
and her son of six. " No children ! " they cried ; and she sent them back, 
and stood, fully believing that they would shoot her, and hoping that her 
death might content them. But no hand was raised, and night came on. In 
the night they were seized with another fit of fury, and broke into the 
queen's room, from which she had but just escaped, while a brave lady and 
two of her guards were barring the outer door. 

The next day the whole family were taken back into Paris, while the 
fishwomen shouted before them, " Here come the baker, his wife, and the 
little baker's boy ! " 

The king and his family were compelled to reside in Paris, whither the 
Assembly also came. Then followed two years of vacillation and hesitation, 
in which Louis XV. alternately made concession to the National Assembly 
and cherished hopes of escaping from its surveillance ; but month by month 
witnessed increased humiliation for himself, and arrogance on the part of 
those who surrounded him. In the mean time the Assembly were repeating 
the most solemn enactments and retraction of various constitutional schemes. 
Mirabeau had been active in the formation of the National Guard, but in 
some of the conflicts which followed he sacrificed his popularity in his efforts 
to maintain the throne. The more that the revolutionary frenzy seized the 
people the more decided was his progress of extreme measures, but he 
found it difficult to maintain constitutional liberty at the same time against 
the friends of the old regime and the extreme revolutionists. But Mirabeau 
was in a position which demanded recognition from the king. Louis was for 
a long time unwilling to enter upon negotiations with one so disreputable, but 
finally he was compelled to invite Mirabeau to enter his ministry. No sooner 
did this become known than a most violent opposition arose, and a combina- 
tion of the most opposite parties united in passing a decree through the 
National Assembly, November 7th, 1789, forbidding a deputy from receivmg 
an appointment as minister. From this time Mirabeau vamly strove to 
preserve the essential prerogatives of the crown. He contmued to struggle 
against the revolution and endeavored to reconcile the kmg and his revolu- 



274 FRANCE.— THE REVOLUTION. [1789 

tionary subjects. He was nevertheless elected president of the club of the 
Jacobins in December, 1790, and in February, 1791, he was made president of 
the National Assembly. In both of these positions he displayed unusual 
activity and unceasing energy. But his boldness and personal exertions 
began to tell upon his strength, and he soon fell into a condition of physical 
and mental weakness from which he never rallied. He died April 2d, 1791, 
and his body was interred with great pomp in the church of St. Genevieve, 
the PantJieon, but it was afterward removed to make room for that of Marat. 
Jacobins : — This was a club composed originally of members of the States- 
general who were of revolutionary tendency, although holding very different 
. ■■ "dc" of opinion. The Jacobin^-began to acquire importance at the time the 
CCational Assembly was removed from Versailles. After this they met in a 
'viH of the former Jacobin convent from which it took its name, which was 
at first a term of reproacH given by its enemies. The name which it had 
I 'opted for itself was that c Society of Friends of the Constitution. Persons 
not connected with the National Assembly were now admitted to the club. 
It came to exercise a great amount of influence in the agitation which had its 
head and life in the capital, and this was extended over the provinces by the 
aid of affiliated societies. Its power developed rapidly, until it grew to be 
greater than that of the Assembly. It had at one time twelve hundred 
branch societies in all parts of France. The National Assembly dissolved 
itself in September, 1791, and the Jacobins had great influence in the election 
of the Legislative Assembly, which succeeded the National. The great events 
which followed each other in such rapid succession were in a remarkable 
degree determined by the voice of this club. The people came at last to 
watch its proceedings with more interest than those of the Assembly. But in 
September, 1792, the Jacobins reached the zenith of their power. The agita- 
tion for the death of the king ; the downfall of the Girondists ; the excite- 
ment of the lower classes against the bourgeoisie, or middle classes, and the 
entire reign of terror over the whole of France were the work of this club. 
The fall of Robespierre on the 28th of July, 1794, gave the death-blow to the 
Jacobins : after this they sought in vain to regain their former prestige. The 
magic of the name was destroyed forever, but the law of October i6th 
forbade the affiliation of clubs, and November 9th of the same year saw the 
doors of the club closed for the last time. Soon after this their place of 
meeting was entirely demolished. 

Girondists : — This was the name given to the moderate republican party 
during this time. The Legislative Assembly met in October, 1 791 , and then the 
Girondists had chosen as their representatives the advocates Vergniaud, Gaudet, 
Gensonn^, Grangeuve, and a young merchant named Ducos, all of whom made 
their influence felt upon the Assembly by their historical power and political 
principles, which were based upon a hazy notion of Grecian republicanism. 
They were joined by the Brissot party and some members of the Center, so 
that they numbered a majority. Their first efforts were directed against the 
policy of the court, and such was their power that Louis was compelled to 



1794] FRANCE.— THE REVOLUTION. 275 

invite the more moderate of the party, Roland, Dumouriez, Clavi6re and 
Servan to the ministry. But he afterward dismissed them, and this act led to 
the insurrection of June 20th, 1792. When the Jacobins came to power the 
Girondists were forced to take a conservative position, but their eloquence 
could not avail out of the Assembly to stay the fearful storm which culmi- 
nated in the massacres of September. All their efforts failed, and at last they 
tried to impeach Marat, who induced the various sections of Paris to demand 
the expulsion of the Girondists ; and the demand, backed up by one hundred 
and seventy pieces of artillery, could not be resisted. Thirty of them were 
arrested, but a majority had escaped to the provinces. There was an uprising 
of the people of Eure, Calvados and Brittary in their defense, and T!^ federal 
army, under command of General Wimpfen, was raised to rescue Paris from 
the hands of the mob. Movements in their behalf w^ere commenced in other 
provinces. The progress of this was, however, stopped by the activity and 
energy of the convention. July 20th, 1782, the revolutionary army took 
possession of Caen, the chief station of the insurgents, and forced the way 
into other towns. Then commenced an awful retribution ; Amar, the mouth- 
piece of the committee of public safety, accused them, before the convention 
on October ist, 1793, of conspiring with Louis XVL, the Royalists, the duke 
of Orleans, Lafayette and Pitt, and it was ordered that they be brought 
before the revolutionary tribunes. They Avere put on trial October 24th. The 
Girondists defended themselves so ably at the trial that the convention 
decreed the closing of the investigation on the 30th. Twenty-one of them were 
sentenced to death, and all except one — Valaze, who stabbed himself — per- 
ished by the guillotine. Nine others were afterward guillotined ; five others 
ascended the scaffold at Bordeaux ; two at Brives ; one each at Periguercx 
and Rochelle ; four committed suicide, viz., Rebecqui drowned himself, 
Petion and Buyot stabbed themselves, and Condorcet took poison. Sixteen 
months later, after the overthrow of Robespierre, the outlawed Girondists 
still living presented themselves in the convention. 

To return after this digression to the line of our narrative. The attempted 
flight of Louis XVL and his queen, Marie Antoinette, ended in their capture 
June 2ist, 1791, after which time all the acts of the king were done under 
compulsion of the National Assembly. He sanctions a national constitution 
September 15th, while a prisoner. The coalition against France was com- 
menced in 1792, and in June the war began and, as might be expected in the 
condition of the nation, the Prussians and their allies w^ere everywhere victori- 
ous. Their army under the command of the duke of Brunswick had captured 
Longroy and Verdun from the French and were advancing upon Paris, drivmg 
the army of Dumouriez before them. When Kellermann, who commanded 
the army of the Rhine, heard of the critical condition of this army he hastened 
to the relief of his comrade, and with a force of twenty-two thousand men 
arrested the attack of the Prussians at Valmy. The latter took possession 
of the heights of La Lune and at once opened a vigorous cannonade upon 
the French. There was not much gained on either side, but the moral effect 



276 FRANCE.— THE REVOLUTION. [1789 

of the battle, or skirmish, was of more effect in arousing the spirits of the re- 
publicans than the immediate effects of the battle would seem to warrant. It 
was the first success of the republican forces with a foreign foe. General Kel- 
lermann was on allegation of treason against the republic ; he was imprisoned 
for ten months and only released by the fall of Robespierre. The repeated 
defeats of the French arms was visited upon poor Louis, who was at once 
confined with his family in the Temple. But in September the Convention, 
fearing the approach of the Prussians, who had advanced as far as Campagne, 
dissolved itself. All Paris was in a terrible state of excitement. In Decem- 
ber, the king was brought to trial and called to answer for repeated acts of 
treason against the republic. On the 20th of January, 1793, Louis XVI. was 
condemned to death and was beheaded the next day. At ten o'clock in 
the morning he was conducted to the guillotine, accompanied by an Irish cler- 
gyman, the Abbe Edgeworth, whom he charged to take care, if his family was 
ever restored to the throne, that no attempt should be made to avenge his 
death. Extensive preparation was made to prevent any attempt at rescue. 
As the executioner had bound him Louis burst away and exclaimed, " French- 
men, I die innocent ! I pray that my blood come not on France." The rolling 
of drums drowned his voice, but the abbe cried out, " Son of St. Louis, ascend 
to the skies." 

After the death of her husband, the widowed queen remained with 
her children in the Temple, cheered by the pity and kindness of Madame 
Elizabeth, until the poor little prince — a gentle, but spirited boy of eight — was 
taken from them, and shut up in the lower rooms, under the charge of a 
brutal wretch (a shoemaker) named Simon, who was told that the boy was not 
to be killed or guillotined, but to be "got rid of" — namely, tormented to 
death by bad air, bad living, blows, and rude usage. Not long after August 
1st, Marie Antoinette was taken to a dismal chamber in the Conciergerie 
prison, and there watched day and night by National Guards, until she too 
was brought to trial, and sentenced to die October i6th, eight months after 
her husband. Gentle Madame Elizabeth was likewise put to death, and only 
the two children remained, shut up in separate rooms ; but the girl was better 
off than her brother, in that she was alone, with her little dog, and had no one 
who made a point of torturing her. 

After the death of the king in January, 1793, revolts broke out in all 
parts of France. On the ist of February war was declared against England, 
which entered into a second coalition with Holland, Spain, Napless, and the 
German States against the republic. An insurrection broke out in La Vendee 
at the same time under Cathelineau, Larochejacquelein, the Chouans and 
others. The second named signaled himself by many heroic acts and gained 
success against the republicans for some time, but was finally defeated 
December 13th, 1793, and escaped with diflEiculty. This insurrection was 
finally put down by General Hoche, who was able by moderate and prudent 
steps to suppress the revolt and gain the entire district. The proscription of 
the Girondists followed, as we have already related, and the reign of terror 



1794] FRANCE.— THE REVOLUTION. 277 

began the 31st of May, 1793. Marat, Danton, and Robespierre were the 
bloody triumivrate who upheld this merciless and insatiable terrorism all over 
France. The human mind turns with a shudder from the fearful sights 
presented. 

Meanwhile the guillotine was every day in use. Cart-loads were carried 
from the prisons — nobles, priests, ladies, young girls, lawyers, servants, shop- 
keepers,- everybody whom the savage men who were called the Committee of 
PubHc Safety chose to condemn. There were guillotines in almost every 
town , but at Nantes the victims were drowned, and at L}'ons they were 
placed in a square and shot down with grape shot. 

Moreover, all churches were taken from the faithful. A wicked woman 
was called the Goddess of Reason, and carried in a car to the great cathedral 
of Notre Dame, where she was enthroned. Sundays were abolished, and 
every tenth day was kept instead, and Christianity was called folly and 
superstition ; in short, the whole nation was given up to the most horrible 
frenzy against God and man. The victims of the guillotine could be 
numbered by thousands. The leaders of the convention seemed to be 
insatiable, and each in turn became jealous of the others. We have already 
spoken of one, we will now devote a little space to the other two. 

Jean Paul Marat was one of the most detestable and infamous characters 
of this period. He was born in 1744. The Revolution brought him into 
prominence, and he had unbounded influence over the lower classes. It was 
owing to him that the massacre of September, 1792, was characterized with so 
much atrocity. In the midst of this he was elected to the Convention ; but 
when he first appeared he was met with expressions of abhorrence ; no one 
would sit near him, and when he rose to speak there was the utmost confusion. 
No falsehood was too monstrous and no deed too atrocious for him. His 
Journal which he had been publishing was now called the Jojirnal de la 
Repiiblique, and was more ferocious and blood-thirsty than ever. He demanded 
two hundred and seventy thousand heads, and defended his demand in the 
Convention, saying that if this was not granted he would demand more. He 
was most bitter against the king, and at his trial called upon the people to 
slay two hundred thousand of the adherents of the old regime, and to reduce 
the Convention to one-fourth its numbers. He obtained the enregister of the 
act by which four hundred thousand suspected persons were imprisoned. 
The rash, unscrupulous and bloody wretch was associated with his peers in 
crime. But he, the most vindictive and perhaps the basest of the three, was 
the first to fall , for on July 13th, 1 793. he was stabbed to the heart by a girl 
named Charlotte Corday, who hoped thus to end these horrors , but the other 
two continued their work of blood, till Robespierre grew jealous of Danton, 
and had him guillotined. 

This young lady was descended from a noble family, but she early 
imbibed revolutionary principles. Her soul revolted at the horrors which she 
saw enacted around her, and she resolved to rid France of one of the three 
leaders; she was undecided whether Robespierre or Marat. It is said that 



278 FRANCE.— THE REVOLUTION. [1789 

while she was debating which one she should strike the latter issued his 
demand for more heads, and by this token she decided which should be her 
victim. After the deed she was at once arrested and dragged before the 
tribunal, where she boldly avowed the act and defended it. Of course she 
was condemned to death, and on the 17th of July sent to the guillotine. 
Her great beauty added to the interest which surrounded her heroic act. 
This event was followed by some of the Avorst atrocities which disgraced the 
French name ; streams of blood as it was said to the manes of Marat. His 
likeness, painted with gaping wounds, was hung up in the Convention, and his 
housekeeper, whom he had married " one fine day in the presence of the sun," 
was maintained at the expense of the State. His body was granted a place 
in the Pantheon, but was cast out again on November 8th, 1795, and his 
picture removed from the Convention. 

The remaining one of the infamous triumvirate was Georgies-Jacques 
Danton, who was born in 1759. When the revolution broke out he was 
an advocate, with no reputation except one for dissolute habits. The 
fierce, half-savage character of the man drew him at once into the vortex 
of the commotion ; Mirabeau quickly detected his genius and hastened 
to attach him to himself. The political role of Danton began with the 
flight of the king and his return. On the 17th of July he and others 
gathered the people in the Champ-de-Mars and goaded them on to demand 
the deposition of the king. 

Sometime after this he became prociireur-substihit for the city of 
Paris. The court found it could not frighten him and undertook to 
bribe him. With what success it is now impossible to say, but the 
weight of evidence points to his venality. However it was, he soon 
became the more implacable of royalty than before. Danton was the 
man whose harangues excited the rabble to their infuriated attack upon 
the Tuileries on the night of that fatal loth of August, and led to the 
butchery of the Swiss guard. He was immediately promoted to the 
office of minister of justice, which gave him such commanding influence. 
He was the incarnate spirit of the revolution, and manifested the same 
heroic audacity in the presence of danger from without and the same 
maniacal terror at the appearance of danger from within. It was his 
impassioned eloquence which restored their spirit to the panic-stricken 
populace when the Prussians were thundering at the very gates of Paris. 
He mounted the rostrum and in a speech of tremendous power stirred 
the very souls of his audience. In a few weeks no less than fourteen 
republican armies were raised, equipped, and ready to repel with unex- 
ampled bravery the entire allied forces. On the very evening on which 
Danton spoke, September 2d, was the beginning of the September mas- 
sacres. Danton thanked the assassins not as the minister of justice, 
but the minister of the revolution. When he was elected as one of the 
deputies of Paris he at once resigned his ofifice as minister and hastened 
to the trial of the king. He showed his character when he replied to 



1794] FRANCE.— THE REVOLUTION. 279 

one of his friends in the convention, who said that they could not legally 
try the king. " You are right, so we will not try him but ivc kill himr 
On the loth of May he established "the extraordinary criminal tribunal," 
and was also president of the committee of public safety. He now set about 
the work of crushing the Girondists ; how wx-11 he succeeded we have 
already shown. 

For some strange reason he began after this to display some intimations 
of returning humanity: he disapproved of the guillotine, and some other 
gleams of feeling lost him the respect of the Jacobins. There came a clash 
between him and Robespierre ; an attempt was made to reconcile them, but 
after an interview they parted on worse terms than ever. He had become 
convinced that the revolution was a sham, and conscious of his inherent power 
he sank into apathy. He declared that his enemies dared not lift a finger 
against him. He was arrested on the night of the 3Cth of March, 1794, 
brought before the same tribunal he had instituted, and by them condemned 
to death. He was guillotined on the 5th of April. He foretold the down- 
fall of Robespierre and called him "an infamous poltroon," and said, " I was 
the only man who could save him." 

The duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe Joseph, Avas tried before the tribunal 
in Marseilles with all the Bourbons, but was acquitted from the charge of 
high treason. He was at once seized and brought before the tribunal of Paris, 
by which he was condemned to death November 6th, 1793, and carried to 
the guillotine the same day. Madame Roland w^as arrested on the same 
night that her husband made his escape from Paris to Rouen and imprisoned 
in the Abbaye. A more dauntless and intrepid spirit never entered its enclos- 
ure. She was released on the 24th of June, but Avas at once re-arrested, with- 
out the shadow of accusation, and taken to Saint Pelagic. Thence she was 
summoned on the first of November — having been employed in the mean while 
in writing her memoirs — to the revolutionary tribunal and sentenced to the 
guillotine. The scaffold was erected at the foot of a statue of liberty, and she 
exclaimed, " Oh, Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name ! ' ' 

With one other name we will come to the close of the reign of terror. 
He is the Count Barras, Paul-Jean-Frangois-Nicolas. He was a prominent 
character in the period of which we are writing. He was born in 1755- At 
the outbreak of the revolution he entered into the contest. He was a deputy 
for the third estate in that famous States-general of 1789. He took an active 
part in the assault upon the Tuileries, after which he received the appoint- 
ment of administrator of the department of war and then of the county of 
Nice. He promptly voted for the execution of the king and declared against 
the Girondists. The siege of Toulon and the triumph of the revolutionaiy 
party were in a great measure due to his activity. And after the victory he 
shared in all the bloody acts which were adopted. Robespierre and the other 
terrorists hated him, and it was he who contributed to their final overthrow 
more than any one other man. The Convention appointed him commander-in- 
chief and virtually made him dictator for the time being. It was while hold- 



28o 



FRANCE.— THE DIRECTORY. 



[1794 



ing this high office, and on the very day which beheld the fall of his rival, that 
he visited the Temple where the young prince Louis XVII. was confined and 
ordered his better treatment. Then he hurried to the Palais of Justice and 
suspended the execution of the prisoners who were there condemned to 
death. 



XYII. 




UT Robespierre was dead, and the reign of terror was 
over. The reaction had set in and already the eyes of 
France, if not of all Europe, were being dazzled by the 
brilliant exploits of the young Corsican, Napoleon 
Bonaparte. 

He was born on the 15th of August, 1769, and at the 
age of ten entered the military school at Brienne, as a 
^ king's pensioner. During the five years he remained here 

he displayed a wonderful aptitude for mathematics, 
history, and geography, but a decided disinclination for merely 
verbal and ornamental studies. He was taciturn and reserved in 
his manner, owing, doubtless, to the fact that he was a foreigner 
and learned French after he came to the school. He was also 
poor and unacquainted with French manners. In October, 1784, 
he went to the government military academy to complete his 
studies for the army, and in a year received his commission as a 
sub-lieutenant in the artillery regiment of de la Fh'e. Napoleon 
was serving in the garrison at Valence. He adopted the popular 
side in his usual quiet and undemonstrative manner. The boisterous 
enthusiasm and the noisy zeal of his associates were repulsive to him. 
Napoleon was in Paris with his friend Bourrienne when the riotous attack 
was made upon the Tuileries, on that infamous 20th of July. When the 
poor king Louis was forced to don the red cap, Bonaparte quietly remarked : 
" It is all over henceforth with that man." He went back to his lodgings 
more thoughtful and morose than usual. 

When the bloody scenes of the loth of August had been enacted he 
returned to his home at Corsica where General Paoli was in the chief 
command. This general revolted at the cruel September massacres, and in 
consequence threw off his allegiance and sought the aid of England. 
Napoleon, with others who were active but unsuccessful in opposing Paoli, 
were obliged to flee from Corsica. 

At this time he petitioned for employment by the Convention and was 



iSoo] FRANCE.— THE DIRECTORY. 2S1 

appointed lieutenant-colonel of artillery, and sent to aid in the capture of 
Toulon. It was owing entirely to his genius and stratagem that the city 
capitulated on the 19th of December, 1793. In the following February he 
was promoted to brigadier-general and assigned to command of artillery in 
"the army of the South." He afterward went to Genoa to inspect the 
fortifications, and report upon the feeling of the inhabitants. At the opening 
of the year 1795 he was again in Paris seeking employment for his sword, 
and at one time seriously thought of offering his services to the sultan of 
Turkey, from sheer ennui at his long inactivity. A wide-spread reaction had 
taken hold of France after the death of Robespierre, and the people were 
becoming weary of the long-continued bloodshed, and there arose a new 
form of government. This consisted of a legislative organization, divided, 
into two bodies : ist, the council of five hundred, whose power was to frame 
the laws, and the council of the ancients, whose duty it was to pass them. The 
executive department of government was entrusted to five members chosen 
from these two councils, and had its seat at the Luxembourg. The five 
chosen were Lepeaux, Letourneur, Rewbel, Barras, and Carnot. This was the 
famous Directory, which came to power in a time of intensest peril for France. 
The country was at this time surrounded with most powerful enemies, and 
within distrust, malice, and discontent made the administration of govern- 
ment well nigh hopeless. She was saved from the greed of foreign powers by 
the matchless bravery of her soldiers, and if the Directory had all been as 
patriotic and firm as some of them were she might have been saved from 
internal spoliation by her own sons. Their policy at home was on the whole 
most lamentable. The same demoralization which had characterized the 
times of Danton and his co-operators prevailed at this time, and the effort of 
the honest minority to serve the country was futile. Barras was a fitting 
representative of the turpitude of the hour, and he set the example in all the 
excesses of the times. It became painfully evident that France could not be 
reconstructed by the fag-end of the revolution. There was now an imperative 
demand for a power and skill that had been disciplined away from the 
unhealthy atmosphere of the metropolis, to accomplish this herculean task. 
The thoughts of a patriot, Abbe Sieyes, were directed to the army, where a 
host of new and brilliant names were now rising, Hoche, Joubcrt, Brune, 
Kleber, Desaix, Massena, Moreau, Bernadotte, Augereau, and ]3onaparte. The 
abbe made known his plan for the overthrow of the Directory, and the 
establishment of a consulate, which was in fact only a monarchy under the 
thin disguise of a republican form of government. It was propounded first 
to Moreau, who was startled by its audacity, and then to Angereau, who could 
not comprehend it, and lastly to Bonaparte on his return from Egypt, who 
admired it and fell into the plan, with what success we shall hereafter see. 
The Directory was a government of weakness, immorality and intrigue. But 
under it there was a general amnesty, and the outward order of affairs was 
resumed, and upon the whole, after the reign of terror, it may have been the 
best under the circumstances. Peace was concluded in 1795 with Spain and 



282 FRANCE.— THE DIRECTORY. [1794 

Prussia. On the 13th of October, 1795, there was a rising of the arrondisse- 
ments of Paris, and there were thirty thousand troops ready to seize the 
Tuileries, in which the Convention held its meetings. The Directory had 
entrusted the defense of the Convention to Moreau, but he had failed to 
meet the exigency of the moment. 

Napoleon had seen the general march out to quell the insurgents, and as 
quickly flee in cowardice before the rabble. He hastened to the Tuileries, and 
with calm visage and undaunted heart watched the deliberations, if such they 
misfht be termed, of the terror-stricken Convention. Moreau had been dis- 
missed in dishonor. Resistance seemed to be useless. It was now eleven at 
night, and all was consternation. Barras rose and broke the awful stillness of 
that chamber. " I know the man who can defend us," he nervously said, " it 
is the young Corsican officer. Napoleon Bonaparte, whose military abilities I 
witnessed at Toulon. He is a man who will not stand upon ceremony." 
Napoleon was called down and asked, " Are you v/illing to undertake the de- 
fense of the Convention ? " "Yes," was the terse reply. They were surprised 
to see a small, slender, pale-faced youth of eighteen before them. Hesitating 
a moment, the president continued : " Are you aware of the magnitude of the 
undertaking?" With his eagle glance fixed full upon his questioner the 
young soldier said, " Perfectly ; and I am in the habit of accomplishing what I 
undertake! But I must be entirely untrammeled by the Convention." When 
the sun rose the next morning the Tuileries appeared like an entrenched 
camp. Artillery was placed to command every approach and defend the cap- 
ital from the attacks of the infuriated mobs. The armed warriors, black and 
threatening, poured down the narrow streets. The members sat in silent awe 
in their very seats, awaiting the attack upon whose issue so much depended. 
Five thousand against thirty thousand. Napoleon, with his guns loaded to 
the muzzle, was ready for the first fire, but he would not assume the respon- 
sibility of opening the contest. He did not wait long; the first volley opened 
upon the handful of defenders. It was the signal for the instantaneous dis- 
charge of all the artillery, which belched forth its slaughter and death till the 
pavements were filled with the dead and wounded. The day was won, and 
Napoleon had taken the first advance to fame. As unmoved as if he had 
done nothing extraordinary, he returned to the Tuileries. Was it luck? No, 
for Moreau had the same opportunity and failed. It was the fact that the 
Corsican had pluck as well as luck. 

Bonaparte was at once appointed commander of the army of the interior 
and was afterward sent to Italy, where he won the battles of Montenotte 
against the Austrians April 12th, 1796, and Mondovi April 22d, in which he 
defeated the Sardinians ; then followed the victory of Lodi over the Austrian 
army May loth. He was now justly regarded as the hero of Italy. Then 
Napoleon hastily entered the city of Milan and gave up all the northern part 
of Italy to the demands of his army. Then commenced a wholesale trans- 
portation of specimens of Italian art to satisfy the sight-seers of Paris. This 
appears to show the barbaric character of French warfare. The Directory 



i8oo] FRANCE.— THE DIRECTORY. 283 

ordered that he should levy contributions on all the States that he had freed, 
and, according to his own account, he sent to France not less than fifty mill- 
ion florins. 

The Austrians made an attempt to dispossess Napoleon from the places 
he had taken. An army of sixty thousand compelled him to raise the siege 
of Mantua, but Marshal Wurmser was himself defeated near Castiglione on 
the 5th of August, and again at Bassano, September 8th. In consequence of 
these defeats the Austrian was forced to seek shelter in Mantua, with only 
sixteen thousand left of the sixty thousand with which he entered Italy. The 
Austrians then sent a third army in two divisions ; one of thirty thousand 
under Marshal Alvinzi and another of twenty thousand under General Davi- 
dowich. This was a terrible campaign for Napoleon, with his exhausted troops 
he was fronted by two fresh armies and was himself disheartened. At first 
the Austrians were successful, but after a severe fight of three days at Areola, 
November 17th, they were defeated by the French general. At this time his 
dispatches to the Directory show how thoroughly absorbed he was in the ma- 
terial welfare of France. A fourth army of fifty thousand began the cam- 
paign of 1797, but it was completely routed by Napoleon on January 14th, 
and but a little while after Admiral Wurmser was starved into surrender. A 
fifth army under the archduke Charles was forced to retreat before the hero, 
and Napoleon had a design of marching upon Vienna, and he actually ap- 
proached within eight days' march of that capital. 

The Austrians were thoroughly alarmed and made proposals for peace, 
which ended in the treaty of Campo Formio, which was signed on the 17th 
of October, 1796. 

It is generally conceded that his brilliant talent was never more remark- 
ably displayed in this entire campaign, and it is but just to him to record 
that he used his utmost endeavors to withstand the exorbitant demands 
of the Directory, and from all the vast amounts which he levied on the 
consigned States not one penny was devoted to his own use. The glory 
of the French arms was established abroad, but she was still suffer- 
ing under the distractions at home. The Directory had repudiated 
two-thirds of the public debt, and thus ruined the commerce of France 
as well as its foreign credit. In December, 1797, Napoleon returned to 
France, where he was enthusiastically received, and under a pretext of 
invading England a force of thirty thousand men was raised and he was 
appointed commander. But under this mask an expedition for Egypt was 
fitted out, and on June 29th he landed in Alexandria. At this period 
Turkey was at peace with France, and this invasion of a dependency of 
the sultan was unwarrantable and opposed to the policy of Europe. It 
reminds us of Eastern rather than Western warfare. Alexandria was cap- 
tured and the French army marched on Cairo. The Mamelukes prepared 
to resist the invasion, but at "the battle of the Pyramids" they were 
totally defeated and the French were masters of Egypt. Napoleon entered 
the capital and began to reorganize the civil and military government of 



284 



FRANCE.— THE CONSULATE. 



[1800 



the country. But on the 2d day of August, Nelson, the EngUsh admiral, 
completely destroyed the fleet at Aboukir bay, and so cut off Napo- 
leon's communication with Europe. A month after the sultan declared 
war against him. He felt compelled to go elsewhere, and so marched his 
army of ten thousand men across the desert, and on the 9th of February, 
1799, he stormed and carried Jaffa after a heroic resistance by the Turkish 
army. Then he marched northward and attacked Acre on the 17th. Here 
his victories ended and he was obliged to retire before the desperate 
bravery and obstinate valor of old Djezzer, assisted by Sir Sidney Smith 
with a small force of English sailors and marines. He then began his 
retreat to Egypt and re-entered Cairo, June 14th. In the mean time the 
sultan had raised an army of eighteen thousand at Aboukir, which was 
completely routed by the French commander July 25th. But the posi- 
tion of Napoleon was far from being comfortable, and he resolved to 
return to France. He had heard of the disasters in Italy and confusion 
in Paris, and therefore he hurried home. He barely escaped capture by 
an English fleet, but finally landed at Frejus on the 9th of October. 



XYin. 

THE CONSULATE. 

^E entered at once into the movement against the 
Directory, and grasping the situation led the move- 
ment which overthrew the government. He, with 
Sieyes and Roger Ducos, succeeded in being nomi- 
nated as consuls. In the early part of 1800 the 
new Constitution was promulgated, which, though 
constitutional upon the face, in fact made Bonaparte 
the sole executive. He at once displayed a most 
6np^^/0 consummate ability in reorganizing the government, to which he 
^^^^ brought a systematic efficiency and a spirit of centralization 
c^(o&C)/Z) final- rnnc;tii-iited a thoroup-hlv Dractical administration. In a 



that constituted a thoroughly practical administration, 
single word the whole power was now in the hands of Napo- 
leon and the French nation perfectly idolized him. He caused 
the repeal of the most obnoxious laws of the Revolution ; 
reopened the churches and regulated the finances. At once 
the prosperity of the nation was insured. In the latter part 
of January, 1800, he moved to the Tuileries, where he took up 
his residence. The French were thoroughly tired of discord, confusion and 
revolution, and they therefore regarded his assumption of supreme power 
with entire satisfaction. But Napoleon was well aware that his genius was 




W(^^ 




i8o4] FRANCE.— THE CONSULATE. 285 

especially adapted to military operations, so he remained but a short time 
in France. He left Moreau in command of the army of the Rhine, and 
crossed the Alps into Italy. He began this wonderful march May 13th, 
1800, and before the Austrian Melas were aware of his presence he 
entered Milan, June 2d. In twelve days he fought the fiercely contested 
and decisive battle of Mcrango, which compelled the Austrians to retire for 
the second time from Lombardy. Later in the year hostilities recommenced, 
but the Austrians were beaten in. Germany by Moreau and in Italy by Bonaparte 
until they were glad to sue for peace. On the 24th of December an attempt 
was made upon Napoleon's life by the means of an infernal machine. The 
peace of Luneville was signed on the 9th of February, 1801, and France 
was put in possession of all the territory to the Rhine. 

England was the only country that refused to recognize the legality of the 
French conquests in Italy, and it was not until March 27th, 1802, that the 
peace of Amiens was concluded between France, Spain, Holland and England. 
This left Napoleon free to attend to schemes for the aggrandizement of 
France and — himself. These were nothing less than to make her the control- 
ing power of Europe and himself the powerful master and the founder of a 
new dynasty. He adopted measures to this end which were prudent, ener- 
getic and persistent ; the immediate results were salutary to France, but at the 
same time they were frequently unjust, unprincipled and criminal. When we 
consider them in the light of their ultimate effects we are forced to regard 
them as execrable. France was still bleeding from internal wounds, and it 
was, first of all, necessary that these should be healed and the scars of the 
conflict removed. This could only be done by a conciliatory policy which 
should unite all parties and antagonize none. The first consul had the tact 
and ability to do this. He first tranquilized and subjected all without offend- 
ing any. This was accomplished by treating all with equal favor and identi- 
fying himself with none. By this means Napoleon was able to gain the 
confidence and the gratitude of all the people. He busied himself in superin- 
tending the drafting of a civil code for France. All the ablest lawyers of the 
nation were brought together under the presidency of Cambreres. Napoleon 
took frequent part in their deliberations. The result of their work was con- 
tained in four volumes. The Civil Code of France, Code of Procedure, 
Code of Instruction in Criminal Law and Penal Code, all of which are vaguely 
termed "The Napoleon Code." Attention was given to education, manufac- 
tures and commerce, but he desired especially to have an energetic and active 
people. He brought to the government of France the same executive ability 
that he displayed in the army, and was already emperor in all but name. He 
would not consent to any independent power but his own, and muzzled the 
press. The Concordat between the Church and State was concluded at Paris, 
June 15th, 1 801, and ratified by the pope April 7th, 1802. By this the arch- 
bishops and bishops were compelled to vacate their sees. They were now 
and henceforth to be appointed by the first consul and receive their installa- 
tion from the pope. The curates were to be appointed by the bishops and 



286 FRANCE.— THE CONSUTLATE. [1800 

ratified by the government. No religious enactment, consecration festival or 
other ceremony could be performed except by permission of the government. 
The Sabbath was to be observed, and in all France there must be only one 
form of liturgy and of catechism. On the other hand the government was to 
pay for the support of the clergy. 

Napoleon was now ready to strike at the very central point of the revolu- 
tion, the idea of popular liberty and the equality of all classes. He established 
the " Legion of Honor," and at once constituted a privileged class. He was 
advancing with rapid strides to the object of his ambition. There arose some 
popular opposition, but the first consul now felt himself strong enough to 
defy all the popular clamor. He was made consul for life August 2d, 1802, 
after a plebiscite, and out of 3,577,379 votes all but eleven thousand were 
cast for the measure. Two days after (August 4th) there appeared a senatiis- 
consult, without any previous consultation with the legislative body, and upon 
the advice of the council of State changed the constitution again. This was 
effected without any show of resistance from the people. 

The peace between France and England did not long continue. The 
policy of Napoleon in Italy had continually irritated the English, and repeated 
remonstrances proving ineffectual the British government declared war against 
France May i8th, 1803. At once the navy of England began to scour the 
seas and completely paralyzed the commerce of France. Napoleon threatened 
an invasion of England, and for this purpose collected a large army at Bou^ 
logne. He so completely misunderstood the spirit and disposition of the 
English nation that he thought that he would be welcomed as the liberator of 
the people. But at this juncture the very dangerous conspiracy against him 
was discovered, and led to one of the most despicable acts, if not the blackest 
of his whole career — the murder of the Duke d'Enghien. 

This conspiracy of the Bourbon princes against Napoleon was headed by 
George Cadoudal. Pichegra and Moreau had succeeded in causing an 
uprising in Brittany. The Duke d'Enghien, the only son of Prince Henri Louis 
Joseph, had retired to the other side of the Rhine after the peace of Luneville. 
But when the discovery of the Bourbon conspiracy was made in Paris Napo- 
leon had him at once arrested on the pretense that he was knowing to the 
conspiracy, and although there was not the least evidence to that effect. The 
natural territory of Baden was invaded and the duke was overpowered by an 
armed band after attempting resistance on the night of May 17th, 1804. He 
was captured with a few friends and servants and taken to Strasburg and 
immediately conveyed to Vincennes ; three days later he was hastily tried and 
condemned to death ; in half an hour the sentence was executed. This cruel 
and audaciously criminal act has af^xed a lasting stigma to the name of 
Napoleon Bonaparte. The illegality of the trial and sentence was subse- 
quently acknowledged by the president of the court. General Hullin. Napo- 
leon endeavored in vain to excuse his action in the eyes of Europe. 

George Cadoudal was one of the leaders of the Chouan or Royalist war in 
Brittany. He was born in 1771, and all the while during the revolution and 



i804] FRANCE.— THE CONSULATE. 287 

the career of Napoleon was a devoted Royalist. He was a distinguished char- 
acter in the conspiracy against the first consul in 1799, but had escaped to 
England after Napoleon had assumed the power. The latter at once recognized 
the ability and force of character of this man and offered to make him a 
lieutenant-general in his army, which he refused, as he also did another 
offer of a pension of one hundred thousand francs if he would only remain 
quiet. Subsequently, when George Cadoudal entered into the conspiracy of 
which we are speaking, he came to Paris, where he was arrested, tried, con. 
victed, and executed June 25th, 1804. He was a man of uncompromising 
integrity and dauntless resolution. Napoleon said of him, " His mind was 
cast in the true mold ; in my hands he would have done great things." 

Charles Pichegru had been a successful general of the republic and risen 
to the chief command of the army of the Rhine in 1793, where he gained 
repeated victories over the enemies of France, but on finding the anarchy 
which prevailed in Paris, he was led by the secret offers of the prince of 
Conde to favor the Bourbons. His conduct aroused the suspicions of the 
Directory and he was superseded in the command by Moreau, and subse- 
quently, on account of other intrigues, he was transported to Cayenne. He 
effected his escape in June, 1798, and entered heart and soul into the 
Bourbon conspiracy. The conspirators secretly came to Paris, bent upon 
taking the life of the first consul. An intimate friend of Pichegru betrayed 
liim to the government for a bribe of one hundred thousand crowns. He was 
surprised in his sleep and carried to the Temple, where he was afterward found 
dead in his bed. An attempt to fasten his death as a private assassination 
upon Napoleon lacks evidence, and the most general belief is, that he stran- 
gled himself. 



XIX. 



E 



I. 




'HE conspiracy was crushed in its beginning, and Napo- 
leon used it as a pretext to advance his claims for 
the emperorship. The question of another change in 
government was submitted to the people, and out of a. 
vote of between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000, only three or 
four thousand were against the measure. But as munici- 
pal freedom was gone, but little value can be placed upon 
this expression of the popular will. On the i8th day of May 
Napoleon assumed the title of emperor, and was crowned, not 
by the pope, but in his presence, December 2d. When the 
pope was about to place the crown upon his head, he suddenly 
snatched it from the pope's hand and crowned himself with it. 
The pope had come to Paris for the purpose of crowning Napo- 
^leon and his wife Josephine. Then there was created a new order 
of nobility, and all the relatives and friends of the new emperor 
were created kings, dukes, counts, and placed over the con- 
quered people which he had subdued. By the means of his- 
power over the weakened continental nations, he made an efficient blockade 
of the coast of England. His arms were everywhere victorious, with the one 
exception of the operations in the peninsula. His policy of aggrandizement 
began at this time to arouse the attention and jealousy of all the other powers, 
and especially Austria, who saw her territory in Italy seriously threatened. 
By the effort of England a coalition was formed in 1805 against France by- 
Austria, Russia, Sweden and England. The war broke out in September of 
that year, and Napoleon moved with his wonderful celerity. His forces,, 
which were scattered widely, were gathered as quickly at Mainz. A forward 
march across Bavaria compelled General Mack to surrender Ulm with twenty 
thousand men on October 17th, and Napoleon entered the Austrian capital on 
the 13th of November. The news of this electrified all France, but the rest 
of Europe was dumbfounded. This was only the prelude to a more wonder- 
ful success. The Russian emperor had already entered Moravia with a 
large army and joined the scattered Austrian troops. Hurrying northward 
the French emperor did not lose a moment, but met the allied armies at. 
Austerlitz on December 2d, 1805. 

The allied armies of Austria and Russia were under the immediate com- 
mand of their respective emperors, and they advanced in five columns to offer- 
battle to the French emperor. But the movements of these were ill- 



i8o5] FRANCE.— THE EMPIRE.— NAPOLEON I. 289 

conducted, and evidently made without a knowledge of the strength of the 
French army. Napoleon had taken his head-quarters at Briinn. The strength 
of his army was fully eighty thousand men, but they were so carefully con- 
cealed under the tactics of their general as not to appear to be nearly so 
many. The engagement began at 7 o'clock in the morning, but the Russian 
line was quickly broken by the French. The left wing of the allied army 
suffered severely toward the close of the battle, and attempted to withdraw 
.across a frozen pond, but Napoleon ordered his artillery to fire upon the ice, 
which was thus broken and thousands of the troops were drowned. According 
to trustworthy accounts the allied armies lost thirty thousand men, and the 
French twelve thousand. Russian and French accounts make the number on 
^each side respectively much less. This battle was followed by an armistice, 
the terms being dictated by the conquering emperor, and on the 26th of 
December, by the treaty of Presburg, Austria was completely humbled by 
this disaster. 

Prior to this decided victory the French navy had suffered a terrible 
defeat at Trafalgar. The French fleet was commanded by Villeneuve, and 
the Spanish fleet, allied with it, by two Spanish admirals. This combined fleet 
■<:onsisted of thirty-three ships of the line, five frigates and two brigs. The 
British fleet opposed them with twenty-seven ships of the line, four frigates 
and two smaller vessels. The engagement resulted in an overwhelming 
■defeat for the French, but the English lost their bravest and best admiral. 
Nelson. 

On the 27th of December Napoleon declared war against the king of 
Naples, because he had violated the treaty of neutrality by receiving an 
English and Russian army with friendship a few days before the battle of 
Austerlitz. A powerful army under Massena and Joseph Bonaparte had 
hastened to Naples to enforce the promulgation of Napoleon's annunciation, 
"The royal house of Naples has ceased to reign." The army reached the 
• capital of the kingdom February 15th, 1807, at whose approach the royal 
house fled in terror to Palermo. The emperor at once appointed his brother 
Joseph the hereditary king of that beautiful kingdom and made him a tribu- 
tary of the empire. The capture of Gaeta, July i8th, consummated this 
revolution. 

Shortly after Joseph Bopaparte had been seated on the throne of Naples 
a delegation from Batavia came to Paris and implored that Louis Napoleon 
should be appointed regent of that country. Immediately this prince was 
proclaimed king of Holland, upon the same conditions that his brother had 
been made king of Naples. 

The kingdom of Italy was now increased by the addition of all the States 
which had formed the States of Venice, and over this was placed the adopted 
son of the emperor. Eugene Beauhafnais, who had married the Princess 
Augusta of Bavaria, was seated on the throne of this kingdom, which now 
embraced all Italy except Hetruria and Rome. 

While Napoleon raised his large family of relatives to dignity and 
19 



290 FRANCE.— THE EMPIRE.— NAPOLEON I. [1804 

renown he did not forget to reward his generals with dukedoms and provinces^ 
by which he could bestow emoluments without taxing France or taking from 
her territory. There was, in fact, a double empire, the direct and the indirect. 
The former consisted of France and her incorporated provinces under the 
immediate rule of Napoleon, the latter of 'the kingdoms and principalities, 
which were held by those who were French subjects and, at the same time^ 
dependent for their power upon the French emperor. 

The entire administration of internal affairs tended to the consolidatiork 
of the empire and the last vestige of freedom to the French. 

The restoration of the Gregorian Calendar in the place of the Republican^ 
the arrangement of the Church in its connection with the State and national 
system of education, all tended to make the people subservient to the will of 
a despot. Only one thing was wanting to concentrate in the person of the 
emperor alone all the relations of Church, education, commerce and the family^ 

the subjection of his own house. This was effected on the 30th of 

March, 1806, by the imperial family statute, by which he was able to rivet 
the chains more closely, not only about France itself, but around the allied 
States he had connected with her. By this his own family, although they 
occupied foreign thrones, were compelled into absolute dependence upon him. 
From the time he became consul for life his character underwent a most 
radical change in every particular. Before that the good of France may have 
been the sole object of his ambition, but thereafter his egregious personal 
ambition swallowed up every other consideration. 

It was Germany which suffered the heaviest from the treaty of Presburg. 
March 15th, 1806, Napoleon gave Cleves, with Berry as an hereditary duchy, ta 
his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, upon the usual condition. The imperial 
city of Frankfort was fallen upon by French troops, put under contribution, 
and presented to the electoral archchancellor on the 19th of September. 
The uncle of the great Napoleon was appointed his coadjutor May 28th. 

A union of sixteen German princes, under the control of the French 
emperor, was concluded at Paris, July 12th, 1806. These princes agreed by a 
treaty of alliance to raise a contingent of sixty-three thousand men for; all 
the wars which France might wage. Augsburg and Lindon were the places of 
rendezvous. The formation of this confederation was communicated with no 
delay by the French charge' d'affaires, Bucher, to the diet of the German 
empire, with the declaration that France no longer recognized the existence of 
a German empire. Thus passed away without noise or confusion an empire 
whrch Charles the Great had founded more than a thousand years before. 

The Confederation of the Rhine, as this union was styled, increased the 
territory of France by an area of between eleven and twelve thousand 
square miles, and added eight million souls to her population. It mattered 
not by what title he was called, whether emperor, king, prince, or protector, 
the great Napoleon was absolute master of all. Negotiations fot peace had 
been begun with Russia and England, but they were abruptly broken off 
October ist. Prussia began to arouse herself and shake off her blifidness to 



i8ii] FRANCE.— THE EMPIRE.— NAPOLEON I. 291 

the situation, now she was thoroughly alive to the important crisis. War 
was declared by France on the 7th, and by Prussia on the 8th. Preparations 
were hurriedly made. Prussia collected an army of one hundred and twenty 
thousand men in the vicinity of Erfurt. It was a valiant army but poorly 
ofificered. Napoleon quietly, and with astonishing rapidity, broke through 
the Prussians and suddenly assailed them on the left flank. The engagement 
near Saalfeld October loth, in which the heroic Prince Louis Ferdinand of 
Prussia fell like a hero, was only the prelude to the fatal day of Jena and 
Auerstadt on the 14th. The Prussian power was overthrown on that bloody 
field. The pages of modern history do not record a defeat so total and 
irredeemable as this. The two Prussian armies were routed and dispersed in 
spite of many heroic exploits. Not less than fifty thousand Prussians fell on 
that day. The subsequent disasters were even more appalling. Two days 
after the battle, Erfurt surrendered with its strong citadels and fourteen 
thousand men. The day after this the entire reserve under the prince of 
Wurtemburg was beaten near Halle. The French crossed the Elbe and 
entered the fortified Sprandau on the 24th of October, and Berlin on the 
25th. The end of disaster had not yet come; on the 28th the Prussian 
general, Hohenlohe, surrendered with seventeen thousand men, the next day 
six thousand cavalry also surrendered, Lubeck was stormed repeatedly on the 
6th of November, and was surrendered by its valiant defender, Blucher, with 
ten thousand men. Other cities follow the same fate, and before the first of 
December all the country between the Rhine and the Oder with 9,000,000 
inhabitants had surrendered to the victorious French emperor. All Northern 
Germany felt the scourge of the victor, and neutral territory was not spared. 
Of all Germany, Austria alone had taken no part in the war; but the suddeii 
fall of Prussia, although it might make their own overthrow less humiliating, 
was none the less an object of terror and grief. After the fall of the 
Prussian capital Napoleon hastened northward to meet the Russians, who 
were now coming to the aid of Prussia ; on his way he aroused the Poles to 
make a strike for liberty, but only with partial success. The French were 
twice beaten back, once at Pultask, December i8th, 1806, and again at Eyiau, 
February 8th, 1807; but after some months they received heavy re-enforce- 
ments, and on the 13th of June they fought and won the great battle of 
Friedland, which led to the treaty of Tilsit July 7th. At the same conference 
a secret treaty was signed, by which the Russians agreed to exclude the 
English from her ports. Just after this treaty the emperor removed the last 
vestige of popular government from the people by the abolition of the 
tribunate. In August the emperor created his brother Jerome, sovereign of 
Westphalia, and soon after declared war with Portugal on account of her 
refusing to keep the British ships out of her ports. In the month of March, 
1808, occurred the extraordinary instance of trepanning at Bayonne, by which 
the royal family of Spain came into the hands of the French. In the 
following July the "dearly beloved brother" of Napoleon, Joseph, was 
ordered to exchange the throne of Naples for that of Spain and the Indies. 



292 FRANCE.— THE EMPIRE.— NAPOLEON I. [1804 

His successor in Naples was Joachim Marat. Spain at once arose in arms, 
and was aided by England under Sir John Moore. Napoleon invaded Spain, 
defeated their army, and entered Madrid December 4th. But he was 
urgently needed elsewhere, and he was obliged to leave Soult and other 
generals to conduct the war in the peninsula. Austria once more prepared 
for war, which began in the spring of 1809. 

The first great operations of the war gave no very decided advantage to 
Napoleon, although his bulletins spoke of partial victories as final triumphs. 
The battle of Eckmuhl on the 22d of April was followed by the entry of the 
French into Vienna on the 13th of May. But the archduke Charles had 
re-enforced his army, and was advancing rapidly along the left bank of the 
Danube, to prevent the enemy crossing from the right bank, on which 
Vienna is situated. In the great stream of the Danube is the island of 
Lobau, nearly three miles in length, and nearly two miles in breadth. To 
this island Napoleon determined to transport his army. This was an 
operation of no common difificulty ; but it was accomplished by incessant 
labor in constructing a great bridge upon boats, held in their places by 
anchors, or by the weight of cannon taken from the arsenal of Vienna. 
From Lobau there was a smaller stream to cross, by a similar bridge, before a 
landing could be effected on the open plain on the left bank. On the 
morning of the 21st of May, the army of the archduke Charles saw from 
wooded heights the army of Napoleon crossing the lesser branch of the river, 
and pouring into the great level called Marchfeld. As the French formed 
their line, the village of Aspern was on one flank ; the village of Essling on 
the other flank. On the 21st and 22d of May, the most sanguinary contest 
of the war here took place. "It was a battle," says Thiers, "without any 
result but an abominable effusion of blood." Never before was the all- 
conquering emperor in so dangerous a position as when the day closed upon 
this horrible carnage. He could not return to Vienna; for the river had 
risen, and the Austrians had floated down the main stream great balks of 
timber and numerous fire-ships, which swept away the boats and their bridge. 
Napoleon could only return to the island of Lobau. Here he retreated, 
carrying with him thousands of wounded soldiers. The place afforded small 
means for their cure or comfort ; and there was soon little difference between 
those who died in the battle-field and those who were borne from it to a 
lingering death. 

The inaction of mutual exhaustion was coming to an end. To Napo- 
leon inaction was generally insupportable. He appeared busily employed 
in constructing massive bridges from the island to the left bank of the 
Danube ; but he was secretly collecting the materials for another wxsrk. 
On the night of the 4th of July the whole of his army crossed the stream, by 
a bridge hastily thrown over an unguarded point. On the morning of the 
5th the French mioved in order of battle toward the entrenched canfip of the 
Austrians, which was to resist the passage over the Danube so ostentatiously 
prepared. The archduke Charles quitted his entrenchments, abandoning the 



i8ii] FRANCE.— THE EMPIRE.— NAPOLEON I. 293 

■country between Enzensdorf and Wagram. He had lost the opportunity of 
attacking the French as they crossed the river in that one night, and 
confronted him as if by miracle. He now retired to a strong position on the 
elevated table-land of Wagram. From this locality the great battle of the 
6th derives its name. The number of soldiers engaged in the work of 
mutual destruction was between three and four hundred thousand. The 
French historians claim to have killed or wounded twenty-four thousand 
Austrians ; and admit to have lost eighteen thousand in killed or wounded. 
But the sturdy resistance of Austria had deranged some of Napoleon's 
grandest plans of ambition. " He had renounced the idea of dethroning the 
house of Hapsburg, an idea which he had conceived in the first movements of 
his wrath." He would humiliate Austria by new sacrifices of territory and 
of money. The time was fast approaching when the conquering parvenu 
Avould demand a daughter of the house of Hapsburg in marriage, com- 
pleting the triumph of his proud egoism by divorcing the woman who had 
stooped from her rank to wed the Corsican lieutenant of artillery. Austria 
sued for an armistice ; and the armistice led to a peace. Two of the 
conditions of the peace of Vienna, which was signed on the 14th of October, 
were more degrading to Austria than the loss of territory. One was that she 
should give no succor to the Tyrolese who had so nobly fought for her 
independence. The other was, that she should unite with all the rest of the 
enslaved continent in the exclusion of the commerce of England, her ally, 
that was affording the most effectual co-operation by exertions in Spain ; and 
had attempted by a small expedition to Naples, and a vast expedition to the 
Scheldt, to divert the levies of France from going to the aid of the French 
armies that were fighting against Austria on the Danube and in Italy. 
England was ill-timed in her assistance ; she was unlucky ; but her good-will 
was not the less sincere. Napoleon returned to Paris, and left his marshals 
to put down the spirit in Germany which a humiliating peace could not 
compromise, and which the system of terror could not wholly extinguish. 
Fifty thousand French and Bavarians marched into the Tyrol ; hunted the 
peasantry from hill to hill ; set a price upon the head of Andrew Hofer ; 
and procured his arrest by treachery. He was tried by court-martial at 
Mantua, and condemned to death. The majority of French officers were 
averse to the sentence being executed. There was a respite ; but an order 
from Paris left no choice. He was shot on the 20th of February. 

The time had now come when Napoleon was about to commit the most 
contemptible act of his who^le life, and for which he ought to receive the 
curse of all decent men. The gentle Josephine, who had stooped from her 
rank to wed the young Corsican sub-lieutenant, had made him a true and 
noble wife. But she was childless, and he wished to ally himself to some 
royal family as well as to perpetuate his family. He therefore began 
proceedings for divorce. The act of divorcement was registered on the i6th 
of December, 1809, and Josephine was permitted to retain the title of 
empress. In less than three months he was married to Maria Louisa, arch- 



294 FRANCE.— THE EMPIRE.— NAPOLEON I. [1804 

duchess of Austria. He was now at the zenith of his power, but according to 
the old Greek beUef Nemesis was already on his track. The real cause of his 
downfall was the moral effect of that outrage on modern civilization contained 
in the Berlin decrees, by which Napoleon declared the whole of the British 
Isles in a state of blockade. 

On the 13th of December, 18 10, all Holland was added to the French 
empire, and created ten departments. The empire now consisted of one 
hundred and thirty departments, embracing forty-two million souls. The 
millions that were dependent upon the Avill of the mighty emperor — a 
godhead with some infatuated English, a " restless barbarian " with others 
not wholly given up to party — can scarcely be numbered. The kingdom of 
Italy, which was under his sway, contained six millions. The kingdom of 
Naples, in which his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, now ruled, contained 
five millions. The kingdom of Westphalia, of which his brother Jerome was 
the sovereign, submitted to the law that was enforced upon his other satel- 
lites, that " everything must be subservient to the interests of France." Pro- 
tector of the Confederation of the Rhine, he had at his feet the kings of 
Saxony, Bavaria, and Wiirtemburg, and a train of minor German princes. 
Prussia was wholly at his mercy. Denmark would obey any command of 
Napoleon since Copenhagen was bombarded and her fleet carried off. Mar- 
shal Bernadotte, prince of Ponte Corvo, had been elected by the States of 
Sweden as successor to the aged and childless Charles XIII., who had 
succeded the deposed Gustavus. The French marshal was installed crown 
prince on the ist of November, 18 10. There only wanted the entire posses- 
sion of Spain and Portugal, under his brother king, Joseph — Austria being his 
own by family ties, and Russia his ally, in the sworn friendship of her 
emperor — to make the world his own. England was to perish in the great 
league of Europe against her commerce ; and in the resistance of America to 
her maritime claims. " The English," says Thiers, " once expelled from 
Portugal, all would tend in Europe to a general peace. On the contrary, 
their situation consolidated in that country, Massena being obliged to retrace 
his steps, the fortune of the empire would begin to fall back before the 
fortune of Great Britain, to sink in the midst of an approaching catas- 
trophe." In his place in parliament, about this time, the marquis Wellesley 
proclaimed a great truth, which he repeated in 1813 : "As Bonaparte was 
probably the only man in the world who could have raised his power to such 
a height, so he was probably the only man who could bring it into imminent 
danger. His eagerness for power was so inordinate ; his jealousy of inde- 
pendence so fierce ; his keenness of appetite so feverish in all that touched 
his ambition even in the most trifling things, that he must plunge into 
desperate difficulties. He was of an order of mind that by nature made for 
themselves great reverses." 

On the loth of March, 181 1, Louise Maria presented the errtperor with a 
son, whom Napoleon in the joy of his heart saluted as king of Rome. The 



I8l2] 



FRANCE.— THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 



295 



infant prince was baptized June 6th, by the name of Napoleon Francois 
Charles Joseph. 

Russia and the other European powers found that they could not 
enforce the unrighteous decrees of Berlin and Milan, and at first began to 
evade them. The relations of England and the United States to the 
continental question are set forth in the respective histories of those 
countries. 



XX. 



iD OF 




;HE eternal friendship between Napoleon and Alexander 
which had been sworn at Tilsit was threatened to be 
dissolved by causes of which the two emperors at first 
took little heed. Princes might submit to the continen- 
tal decrees of France, but nations were more difficult to 
persuade or to coerce. The Russian people, and 
especially the Russian landholders, who were deprived of 
the usual markets for the produce of their estates, compelled 
the government to issue a ukase, by which commodities were to 
be introduced into Russian ports unless they should appear' to 
belong to subjects of Great Britain. This restriction was easy 
to be evaded, and the trade between the two countries became 
really opened. Napoleon was haughty and indignant. But 
Alexander dared not impose any severer law upon his subjects ; 
and he had now the support of Bernadotte, the crown prince of 
Sweden, who also refused to submit to the dictator, who had 
seized and confiscated fifty Swedish merchantmen, on the 
ground of their contraband trade with England. In March, 1812, a treaty of 
alliance was signed between Russia and Sweden. Napoleon had been 
gradually collecting large bodies of troops on the Vistula. He had levied the 
conscription of 1812, although that of 181 1 was only just completed. It was 
clear that an offensive war was in preparation. At the beginning of May, the 
Russian minister at Paris presented an official note, to the intent that the 
differences between the governments might be easily settled if the French 
troops were withdrawn from Pomerania and the duchy of Warsaw, where 
they were evidently stationed to threaten the Russian frontier, Bonaparte 
said he would not be dictated to by any foreign sovereign, and he sent the 
ambassador his passports. On the 9th of May he left Paris, with his Austi'ian 
empress. At Dresden he received the homage of his tributary princes : and 



s 

296 FRANCE.— THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. [1S12 

there, too, came the emperor of Austria and the king of Prussia, to offer 
their contingents for the invasion of Russia. Splendid were the ceremonials 
with which the vassals did fealty to their liege lord. The numbers of the 
confederated army which, on the 24th and 25th of June, passed the Niemen, 
the boundary of the Russian empire, have been variously stated. The lowest 
estimate places them at half a milHon of men. A detailed return, extant in 
the French War-office, gives the numbers as six hundred and fifty-one thou- 
sand three hundred and fifty-eight infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineers; 
one' hundred and eighty-seven thousand one hundred and twenty-one horses, 
and one thousand three hundred and seventy-two pieces of ordnance. To 
meet this mighty force, the Russian armies only comprised two hundred and 
fifty-four thousand three hundred and fifty-six men. But there was some- 
thing stronger than these mighty masses of invaders, — the determination of 
the Russian people to resist to the last extremity. It was in this spirit that 
the officers and soldiers of Alexander's army held that to ruin the invader 
they must retire before him into the heart of Russia without giving battle, 
and, destroying everything before him in their retreat, to leave nothing but 
ravaged fields, so that the modern Pharaoh and his hosts should perish in the 
immensity of the void, as the ancient Pharaoh perished in the waters. 

The French armies entered Lithuania without encountering any op- 
position. They ravaged the country, feeding their horses on green corn ; 
and when the main bodies left it, entirely devastated, they left behind them a 
hundred thousand men, dead, or in hospitals, or marauding in scattered 
parties through the districts where the locusts who had passed over had left 
nothing to be consumed. On the i6th of August they were under the walls 
of Smolensk, about two hundred and eighty miles from Moscow. The 
Russians were there in force, and a great battle took place. When the 
French entered th? city it had been evacuated, and they found only burning 
ruins. The Russians continued their retreat toward Moscow, Napoleon 
following them. On the 7th of September was fought the sanguinary battle 
of Borodino. The sun had risen with extraordinary brilliancy, and Napoleon 
hailed it as the twin sun of Austerlitz. The fighting lasted two days. On 
each side there were forty thousand killed and wounded. Each army imagined 
itself lord of the field ; but the Russian army continued its retreat to 
Moscow. 

On the 14th of September before day dawn, the Russian troops com- 
menced filing through the city. They were soon accompanied by all the 
inhabitants and populace who could find any means of conveyance. " The 
incidents and the whole scene of the evacuation of a great capital may be 
conceived better than described. The Russians, however, have preserved so 
much of their nomad habits, that they were much more quickly packed and 
equipped for their emigration than the inhabitants of any other European 
city would have been. The army, indeed, since the first day's retreat from 
Smolensk, had been accompanied by a wandering nation. All the towns 
villages, and hamlets were abandoned as the columns appeared. The old and 



i8i4] FRANCE.— THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 297 

infirm, the women and children were placed with the movable effects, and 
the ' Dii Penates,' on their kabitgas or telegas — one and two horse carts which 
no peasant is without." On the same day Napoleon arrived at Moscow with 
his guards, and was astounded at the solitude which reigned everywhere. 
" His feelings had been excited to the highest degree of pride and glowing 
expectation. He had anticipated his reception by a submissive magistracy 
and humbled people, imporing clemency ; and dreamt that in the palace of 
the czars he would have it in his power to promise pardon, protection, and 
peace to themselves and their sovereign." 

Napoleon took up hi.s residence in the suburb of Moscow. He had 
commanded his soldiers to bivouac outside the city, but at night many 
entered, and sought in plunder and riot some compensation for their long 
endurance of severe privations. That very night the alarm of fire was given 
in various quarters. The great bazaar with its ten thousand shops was in 
a blaae. The crown magazines, with vast stores of wine and spirits, were in 
a blaze. Not a fire-engine, not a bucket, could be procured. They had all 
been carried off. The next day the French emperor transferred his quarters 
to the Kremlin. Day after day the astonished soldiers saw the canopy of 
smoke and flame spreading over the city of a thousand domes and minarets. 
On the 2 1st, the Russian army was established within twenty-five miles of 
Moscow. They knew that the progress of their invader had been stayed. 
The conflagration went on till, of forty thousand houses in stone, only two 
hundred escaped ; of eight thousand in wood, five hundred only were stand- 
ing ; of sixteen hundred churches, eight hundred were consumed. The 
Kremlin itself, on the i6th, had become uninhabitable, and Napoleon left it 
to take up his quarters outside the city. A furious wind carried showers of 
sparks far and near. On the 20th, when Napoleon returned, a heavy rain had 
extinguished the flames, but only one-tenth of the city was left unconsumed. 
Only those provisions had escaped being burnt which were left in the cellafs 
of the houses. What was the cause of this terrible destruction ? Was it the 
resolved purpose of a patriotic devotion producing a havoc more awful than 
any event which history records, or was it accident ? There can be no doubt 
that it was part of the same determined system of resistance which had driven 
the whole population from the burning villages on the road from Smolensk, 
and had led forth the inhabitants of Moscow, with the exception of the 
miserable thousands who were unable to move, to seek for other shelter than 
in the homes of the devoted city. Rostopchin, the governor of Moscow, 
*' could neither deny nor adopt the act." But that he had a strong conviction 
of what was public virtue may be gathered from the fact that he afterward 
set fire with his own hands to his magnificent palace in the village of Woro- 
now, when a division of the French were approaching on the 4th of October, 
and that he afiixed upon a pillar these ominous words : " The inhabitants of 
this property, to the number of seventeen hundred and twenty, quit it at 
your approach, and I voluntarily set the house on fire that it may not be 
polluted by your presence. Frenchmen, I abandoned to you my two houses at 



298 FRANCE.— THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. [1812 

Moscow, with their furniture and contents, worth half a milHon of roubles. 
Here you will only find ashes." The French evacuated Moscow on the 19th 
•of October. Snow had begun to fall. An early winter was setting in. 

Adequately to describe the incidents of that terrible destruction of the 
French grand army, which occurred from the 19th of October to the 13th of 
December, when a miserable remnant re-crossed the Niemen, would require 
a volume — as indeed several separate volumes have been written on that fear- 
ful catastrophe. The march of the French was a succession of battles with 
the pursuing Russians. The troops were skillfully led ; their courage rarely 
failed, even when starving and perishing by the wayside with the extremity 
of cold. Clouds of Cossacks hung upon their path, leaving them not an hour's 
-safety. The most popular narrative, that of the Count de Segur, has been 
lield to contain many exaggerations. That of Sir Robert Wilson has many 
striking details of horror, amid a critical military view of the operations of 
the Russians in which he is not sparing of blame. There is a brief account 
by Desprez, the aide-de-camp of King Joseph, who was sent to Napoleon to 
propitiate his anger against his brother, and against Marmont, for the defeat 
at Salamanca. The emperor kept him at Moscow, and when the evacuation 
took place, he accompanied the division of Marshal Mortier, till it reached 
Wilna, where the French had staid till the i6th of December, when the 
Russians were coming upon them. The aide-de-camp, in a letter to King 
Joseph, dated from Paris on the 3d of January, says that the army when he 
'quitted it was in the most horrible misery. For a long time previously the 
disorder and losses had been frightful ; the artillery and cavalry had ceased 
to exist. The different regiments were all mixed together ; the soldiers 
marching pell-mell, and only seeking to prolong existence. Thousands of 
^wandering men fell into the hands of the Cossacks. The number of prisoners 
w^as very great, but that of the dead exceeded it. During a month there 
were no rations, and dead horses were the only resource. The severity of 
the climate rendered hunger more fatal. The truth could not be wholly 
hidden, even by Napoleon. He could not conceal that of four hundred 
thousand Frenchmen who had crossed the Niemen in May, with the persua- 
sion of their invincibility, not twenty thousand had returned to the Vistula. 
The destruction could not be concealed from the bereaved families who 
mourned their sons and their husbands. On the 3d of December, the em- 
peror issued his twenty-ninth and last bulletin, which made France and the 
'world comprehend, in some degree, how the invasion of Russia had ended. 
For the first time he then spoke of his retreat ; he avowed such part of his 
misfortunes as he could not wholly deny; he attributes his calamities to the 
severity of the weather. On the 5th, in the middle of the night, he quitted 
his army at Smorgoni, traveling in a sledge, accompanied by Caulaincourt, a 
Polish interpreter, his mamlook Rustan, and a valet. He arrived in Paris on 
the night of the 18th of December. 

There is a description of the state of public feeling in Germany at the 
beginning of 181 3, which shows how the continent was awakening from its 



i8i4j FRANCE.— THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 299 

torpor. The writer was a professor in the University of Breslau : " The 
29th bulletin had appeared : every artful expression in it seemed to endeavor 
vainly to conceal the news of a total defeat. The vision of a Wonderful 
agitated future rose in every mind with all its hopes and terrors : it was 
breathed out at first in tones scarcely audible : even those Avho had believed 
that unbridled ambition would find its check in the land which it had deso- 
lated could not realize the horrible destruction of a victorious army, an army 
which had for fifteen years, with growing might, excited first the admiration, 
then the terror, and, lastly, the paralyzed dismay of all the continental nations, 
and which had at length been overtaken by a fearful judgment, more wonder- 
ful than its conquests. But the strange event was there ; reports no longer 
to be doubted crowded in upon us, — the distant voice approached, — the por- 
tentous words sounded clearer and clearer, — and at last the loud call to rise 
was shouted through the land. Then did the flood of feeling burst from 
hearts where it had been long pent up, — fuller and freer did it flow ; then 
the long-hidden love to king and countiy flamed brightly out, and the dullest 
minds were animated by the wild enthusiasm. Every one looked for a tre- 
mendous crisis, but the moment was not yet come for action, and while 
resting in breathless expectation, thousands and thousands became every 
hour stronger still to meet it." 

The passionate impulses of the people of Prussia were powerful enough 
to make their sovereign resolve to endure no longer his state of ignominious 
vassalage. He first made a proposal to Napoleon, with the consent of Alex- 
ander, whom he met at Breslau, that the French should evacuate Dantzic, 
and all the Prussian fortresses on the Oder, and retire behind the Elbe into 
Saxony. The Russian army should in that case remain behind the Vistula. 
Napoleon contemptuously spurned the proposition. Frederick-William and 
Alexander then concluded an alliance, offensive and defensive. Austria 
decided to remain neutral. Hostilities immediately began. The French 
quitted Berlin and Dresden. The old spirit of Germany, — the spirit of 
Arminius, which eighteen centuries before had driven the Roman legions 
beyond the Rhine, — had again awakened. Secret societies had cherished this 
spirit, and now it no longer needed to be secret. The preacher called upon 
his congregation to arm ; the professor told his class that they must now 
learn to fight. At nightfall in every city bands of young Germans shouted 
forth the songs of Arndt ; and every student and every apprentice could join 
in the chorus of '' Was ist der Deutschen Vaterland." In the mean time, 
France, weeping for her children, still crouched at the feet of her master. 

The senate were now called upon to place at the disposal of the emperor 
half a million of conscripts. He took the field in the middle of April. He 
could reckon upon collecting two hundred and fifty thousand troops before 
Russia and Prussia could concentrate an equal force. But of his forces four- 
fifths were young soldiers ; the other fifth were Germans. He left Erfurt to 
march upon Leipzig. On the 2d of May he fought the battle of Lutzen, and 
defeated the combined Russian and Prussian army. His victory gave him 



300 FRANCE.— THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. [1812 

possession of Leipzig and of Dresden. On the 20th and 21st of May the 
two armies renewed the struggle at Bautzen. The slaughter on each side was 
nearly equal. The allies retreated ; but Napoleon did not attempt to follow, 
up the success which he had achieved at a prodigious loss, which told him 
that such days as Austerlitz and Jena were not likely to recur. An armistice 
was agreed upon, to extend from the 5th of June to the 22d of July. Bona- 
parte spent this period in Berlin trying to deceive the powers by pretending 
to devote himself to ease and pleasure, but he was really preparing for the 
coming contest. The duke of Wellington gained a decided victory at 
Vittoria on the 19th of June, over Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal Jourdan. 
Then followed repeated victories over the French in Spain by the allied 
forces. The spirit of Europe was thoroughly aroused and the spell wa& 
broken. In all Europe and even in France the feeling was growing that the 
world had had " enough of Bonaparte." Prussia was burning to wipe out the 
disgrace of Jena and the bitter humiliation which followed. An alliance w^as 
formed between Prussia and the Emperor Alexander ; at first Austria stood 
neutral, but subsequently joined it. The exalted military genius of Napoleon 
never shone more brightly than in the campaign which resulted in his down- 
fall. The opening battles Avere successful : that at Lutzen, May 2d, at Baut- 
zen, May 2 1st, and Dresden, August 24th, 25th and 27th, but an invincible 
determination, which made these last victories well nigh fruitless, had seized 
the allied powers. They were thoroughly convinced that one grand victory 
by them would neutralize all the advantages gained by Napoleon. And the 
issue proved that they were correct. Napoleon had won his last victory. 
Then followed a series of disasters on the 26th of August in the battle of 
Katzbach, in which the French lost twenty-five thousand men, and then the 
defeat of Vandamme on the Zo. The Swedes, Prussians and Russians had 
won the field of Gross-Buren the 23d of August. General Ney was defeated 
at the battle of Denniwitz on September 3d. On the 8th of October the 
king of Bavaria was obliged to join the allies. Napoleon saw that these 
reverses were not transitory misfortunes that could easily be retrieved. 
When he heard of the defeat of Vandamme he exclaimed : "■ This is war : — 
high in the morning, low at night." The morning had now little sunshine. 
He determined to fight his way to the Rhine, though all Germany was rising 
against him. To Leipzig he directed his march. He arrived in its neighbor- 
hood on the 15th of October. The Russians and Prussians were advancing to 
the same point. On the i6th he was attacked at the village of Wachau, near 
Leipzig. The action was not decisive ; but for Napoleon not to win triumph- 
antly was in itself defeat. On that day Bernadotte had not come up. There 
was a doubt at the Prussian head-quarters whether the crown prince of 
Sweden would be staunch. The amateur soldier, Professor Steffens, was sent 
to search for him after the battle of the i6th had begun. " It was not till 
night," he says, " that I made him out at Landsberg, in miserable quarters, 
surrounded by Swedish officers. He lay on a mattress spread on the floor of 
a desolate, nearly empty room. The dark Gascon face, with the prominent 



i8i2] FRANCE.— THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 301 

nose and the relaxing chin, was sharply relieved against the white bed-clothes 
-and the laced night-cap." Steffens explained the object of his mission. 
Bernadotte promised to march directly, and he kept his promise. On the 
17th there was a pause. Napoleon had been secretly making propositions for 
an armistice. His father-in-law and Alexander returned no answer. The 
battle was fought on the i8th and decided the fate of Napoleon. The 
French were defeated and marched out of Leipzig on the morning of the 19th 
before daybreak. Then commenced the disastrous retreat toward Paris, 
closely followed by the allied forces. Napoleon won his last victory at 
Hannau on the 30th and 31st of October, 1813. His last fight on German 
soil resulted in a victory, but it could not stay his retreat. He crossed the 
Rhine November 22d. 

On the 14th of November the senate of France presented an address to 
Napoleon at the Tuileries. In his answer he said, "A year ago all Europe 
marched with us : now all Europe is marching against us. It is because the 
opinion of the world is formed by France or by England. We should have 
everything to fear but for the energy and power of the nation." The senate 
at once gave him three hundred thousand conscripts. In all, France had sacri- 
ficed, from September, 1805, to November 15th, 1813, no less than 2,103,000 of 
her sons. 

Two columns of the allies marched upon Paris. On the 20th of January, 
1 8 14, the battle of Brienne was fought, but it decided nothing. By a rapid 
and daring movement Napoleon put himself in the rear of the allied forces. 
A hard battle was fought in the defense of the capital on March 30th, and on 
the 31st Paris capitulated. Napoleon abdicated and retired to the Island of 
Elba, but the allied powers recalled Louis XVIII., who entered Paris on the 
3d of May amid the shouts of Vive le Roi. The king promised the French a 
constitutional crovernment. 



XXL 



THE HEED MYS-WATEELOO. 




'HE diary of Mr. Abbot, the speaker of the British 
House of Commons, for the month of March, 1815, con- 
tains brief but remarkable entries, which may suggest 
some notion of the agitation of the pubhc mind when 
the news came of two most unexpected and untoward 
events. 

" March 8th. — News arrived this day of the failure of 
the attack on New Orleans ; and the loss of General Pakenham,, 
General Gibbs, and twenty-five hundred men killed and 
wounded." 

" March loth. — News arrived of Bonaparte having escaped 
from Elba, and landing at Antibes with one thousand men." 

The second startling piece of intelligence, following so 
close upon the announcement of a great defeat of the British 
army in America, might have suggested to many a belief that 
the treaty of peace and amity between Great Britain and the 
United States, signed at Ghent on the 24th of December, had 
not been ratified ; that the escape of Bonaparte had been anticipated by his 
democratic friends in America ; and that a war in both hemispheres would 
make the peace as- perishable as " The Temple of Concord," splendid with 
lamps and fireworks for a few hours, upon which the people had gazed in the 
Green Park on the night of the ist of August. The peace of Ghent had 
nevertheless been duly ratified. At four o'clock on the morning of the 2d of 
March, the troops, in number about eight hundred, with Napoleon at their 
head, attended by his old companions in arms, Bertrand, Drouet, and Cam- 
bronne, commenced their march north on the road to Grasse ; and possibly 
skirted Cannes on the east side, which quarter has been almost entirely built 

since 1815. 

This landing in the Gulf of St. Juan on the ist of March was the intro- 
ductory scene to the great drama called " The Hundred Days." These count 
from the 13th of March, when Napoleon assumed the government, to the 22d 
of June, when he abdicated. 

The secret departure from Elba was not known to the sovereigns of 
Austria, Prussia and Russia, and to the representatives of the other European 
powers assembled in congress at Vienna, till the 7th of March, when the 
duke of Wellington received a dispatch from Lord Burghersh, the British 



i8i5] FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED DAYS.— WATERLOO. 303 

minister at Florence, announcing the astounding fact. It was some days 
afterward before the landing near Cannes and the march toward Grasse were 
known at Vienna. Such was the slowness of communication that on the 5th 
of March it was not known in Paris that the ex-emperor had quitted the terri- 
tory all too narrow for his ambition. Let us, before proceeding to relate the 
progress and issue of this great adventure, take a retrospect of the events that 
had followed Napoleon's abdication on the 4th of April, 18 14 — eleven months 
of false confidence and hollow peace. 

The 4th of June, 1814, was an exciting day for Paris; an important day 
for the future tranquility of France and of Europe. A constitutional charter 
was that day to be promulgated by the restored king ; and, on the same day, 
the last of the allied troops were to quit the capital. Louis XVHL was to 
be left in the midst of his subjects, without the guarantee for his safety which 
some associated with the continued presence of the armed foreigners. The 
charter created a chamber of peers, of about one hundred and forty mem- 
bers, named for life by the king. These took the place of the servile flatter- 
ers of Napoleon, called the senate. The composition of this new body was 
an approach to impartiality in the union of members of the old noblesse with 
a remnant of the senate, and of generals of the army before the revolution, 
with marshals of the empire. By the charter, a representative body was also 
created, with very sufficient authority, and especially with the power of deter- 
mining the taxes to be levied on the people. The letter of the ancient feudal- 
ism had perished. But its spirit lingered in the very date of this charter. It 
was held that Louis XVIII. began to reign when Louis XVII., the unhappy 
son of Louis XVI., was released by death from his miseries. The charter 
" given at Paris in the year of grace 1814, in the nineteenth year of our reign," 
was an emanation of the royal bounty. The king was declared by the chan- 
cellor, in his speech of the 4th of June, to be " in full possession of his hered- 
itary rights," but that he had himself placed limits to the power which he had 
received from God and his fathers. 

The constitutional charter was in some degree the work of the king him- 
self, inasmuch as he had greatly modified a charter presented to him by the 
senate, which he found busy upon a constitution after Napoleon's abdication. 
The substance, and even the forms of liberty, having perished during the con- 
sulate and the empire, the change was great when freedom of speech and of 
writing were possible ; when a senate and a representative body could debate 
without reserve and vote without compulsion. 

When the powers who had signed the treaty of Paris assembled in 
congress at Vienna on the 30th of March they were informed of the 
escape of Napoleon and his entrance into France. They at once pub- 
lished a declaration which showed conclusively that there must be a 
renewed trial of strength more or less severe. The 4th of April the duke 
of Wellington arrived in Brussels to devise measures for the defense of 
the Netherlands. The ex-emperor had marched from Cannes to Grenoble 
and encountered no opposition. He had been in communication with 



304 FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED DAYS.— WATERLOO. [1815 

Labedoyere, who was an officer of the garrison at Grenoble, and this 
young colonel was ready with the men he commanded to hoist the tri-color. 
General Marchand, the governor of Grenoble, who was firm in his allegiance 
to the sovereign of the Restoration, sent out a detachment to observe the 
force that was approaching. Napoleon alone advanced to meet them, 
exclaiming, "I am your emperor; fire on me if you wish," The soldiers 
threw themselves on their knees, and amid shouts of " Vive rEinpereiir^'' 
joined his ranks. Labedoyere and his men swelled the number, and Napo- 
leon entered Grenoble amid the cheers of the soldiery and the citizens. On 
the 1 2th of March he was at Lyons, from which city he issued his decrees, 
which showed that he assumed supreme authority. On the 7th of March 
Marshal Ney had left the king, saying that he would bring the ex-emperor 
back in an iron cage, but on the 14th the marshal issued his orders at Auxerre 
in favor of Napoleon. On the 19th of March the king dissolved the chamber 
of deputies and on the 20th left the Tuileries. On the 21st Napoleon slept 
there, having been borne up the grand staircase by an enthusiastic crowd. 
On April 30th he issued a decree convoking the electoral college for the nom- 
ination of deputies. The greater number of people abstained from voting. 
In an assembly of two hundred thousand people of both sexes Napoleon 
announced that the wishes of the nation had brought him back to his throne 
and his whole thoughts were turned to the " founding our liberty on a consti- 
tution resting on the wishes and interests of the people." This constitution 
was called " Acte additionel aux Constitutions de I'Empire." It was a very 
literal copy of the charter of Louis XVIII. , and had been forced upon the 
emperor by a party who believed that a limited monarchy, with representative 
institutions, might be a successful experiment, whether under a Bourbon or 
a Bonaparte. Napoleon had addressed letters to the European potentates, 
professing his moderate and peaceful intentions. No faith could be placed 
in his professions, and his letters were unanswered. There could only be 
one solution of the question between Napoleon and the allied powers. In 
the Champ de Mai he exclaimed, " The princes who resist all popular rights 
are determined on war. For war we must prepare." The Chambers com- 
menced their functions, not in the old spirit of the empire, but as if they 
really trusted in his promises. But Napoleon would not wait the attack of 
his enemies. On June nth he left Paris after he had appointed a provisional 
government to act in concert with the Chambers. On the 13th he was at 
Avesnes, and on the 15th had crossed the frontier at the head of one hundred 
and twenty-two thousand men. 

The battle of Waterloo was fought on the i8th of June, 181 5, on the 
ground which we call the field of Waterloo (although the battle was fought 
about a mile and a half in advance of that village). Wellington had taken 
up his position, with a certain knowledge, derived from several previous 
examinations, of its capabilities for defense. '' He used to describe the line 
of ground between the farm of La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont as 
resembling the curtain of a bastion, with these two positions for its artgles." 



I8i5] FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED DAYS.— WATERLOO. 305 

The first care of the duke was to occupy with sufficient force these two 
angles, Hougoumont, near the Nivelles road, in front of the right center, and 
La Haye Sainte, close to the Genappe road, in front of the left center. The 
right of his position was thrown back to a ravine near Braine Merbes, 
which was occupied ; and its left extended to the chateau of Frichermont, 
situated on a height above the hamlet of La Haye. The undulated plain 
upon which the army of English, Belgians, and Germans looked from the 
ridge on which they stood on the evening of the 17th was covered with crops 
of grain, of potatoes, and of clover. It had rained incessantly through the 
day ; as night advanced the torrents of rain were accompanied with thunder 
and lightning. The troops had to bivouac upon the wet crops, while the 
generals and their staff obtained shelter in the adjacent villages. Wellington 
had his head-quarters in a house opposite the church at Waterloo. At three 
o'clock in the morning of the i8th be was writing to Sir Charles Stuart at 
Brussels, with a calm confidence in the result of the almost inevitable 
struggle of that day. " The Prussians will be ready again in the morning for 
anything. Pray keep the English quiet if you can. Let them all prepare to 
move, but neither be in a hurry or a fright, as all will yet turn out well." At 
the same hour he wrote a long letter in French to the Duke de Berri, in which 
he says, " I hope, and moreover I have every reason to believe, that all will go 
well." At the time of writing this letter, only a portion of the French army 
had taken up their ground on the opposite side of the valley, and he thought 
it possible that the main attack might be made at Hal, on the great road from 
Mons to Brussels. He had there stationed seven thousand men^ in addition 
to a large number of troops under the command of the prince of Orange. 
The possible success of the enemy there appeared to him " the only risk we 
run." His army was a little superior in number to that of Napoleon, but 
it was inferior in artillery. There was however a far greater disparity. Well- 
ington commanded an army of various nations, who had never before fought 
together ; and even some of his British troops were new levies. In the 
summer of 18 14, a large number of his famous Peninsular soldiers had been 
sent to America. Napoleon, on the contrary, had an army which he could 
wield with the most perfect assurance of unity of action, composed in 
great part of veterans who had returned to France at the peace. When 
Napoleon saw the English in position before the forest of Soignies, he 
exclaimed, "At last I have them ; nine chances to ten are in my favor." He 
was of opinion, in which his generals agreed with him, that it was contrary 
to the most simple rules of the art of war for Wellington to remain in the 
position which he occupied ; that having behind him the defiles of the forest 
of Soignies, if he were beaten all retreat would be impossible. Extensive 
and compact as that forest was, Wellington knew that there were many 
roads through it, all converging upon Brussels, most of which were practicable 
for cavalry and for artillery, as well as for infantry. " The duke," says Lord 
Ellesmere, " was of opinion that his troops could have retired perfectly well 
through the wood of Soignies, which, like other beech woods, is open at 
20 



3o6 FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED DAYS.— WATERLOO. [1815 

bottom ; and he was still further satisfied that, if driven from the open field 
of Waterloo, he could have held the wood against all comers till joined by 
the Prussians, upon whose co-operation he throughout depended and relied." 
The greater number of military authorities agree that the position of Mont 
St. Jean was well chosen, and suitably occupied. 

The allied troops had won the victory, and Napoleon had received his 
crushing defeat. The allied armies lost twenty-four thousand six hundred 
and seventy-nine men, and the French, eighteen thousand five hundred 
killed and wounded, and seven thousand eight hundred prisoners. After that 
fatal night the defeated emperor hastened with all speed to Paris. The 
Chambers of Representatives met at noon on that day and declared itself 
permanent. It was now determined that he should abdicate. Louis Bona- 
parte urged the claims of his brother to the gratitude of France. The Marquis 
Lafayette replied that " during ten years three millions of Frenchmen had 
perished for a man who would still struggle against all Europe. We have 
done enough for him. Now our duty is to save our country." Napoleon was 
urged to abdicate, but he refused. He resisted for some time, but at last 
submitted, and dictated his abdication in favor of his son. He said, " My 
political life is ended." The government required him to leave France for the 
United States. He went to Rochefort, and, not finding a chance to escape, 
gave himself up to the captain of an English vessel, the Bellerophon, who 
took him to Plymouth. On the 31st of July the English government 
decided that the Island of St. Helena should be his future home. He 
protested that he was not a prisoner of war, and this question gave rise to 
grave discussion. 

Lord Campbell says : " I think Lord Eldon took a much more sensible 
view of the subject than any of them— which was, * that the case was not 
provided for by anything to be found in Grotius or Vattel ; but that the law 
of self-preservation would justify the keeping of him under restraint in some 
distant region, where he should be treated with all indulgence compatible with 
a due regard for the peace of mankind.'" The probability is, that if 
Napoleon had fallen into the hands of the Prussians, who were near Paris on 
the 29th of June, the question of his fate would have been disposed of in a 
much more summary way than could arise out of any discussion upon the law 
of nations. On the 28th of June, Wellington wrote to Sir Charles Stuart : 

" General has been here this day, to negotiate for Napoleon's passing to 

America, to which proposition I have answered that I have no authority. 
The Prussians think the Jacobins wish to give him over to me, believing that 

I will save his life. [Bliicher] wishes to kill him ; but I have told him that 

I shall remonstrate, and shall insist upon his being disposed of by common 
accord. I have likewise said, that, as a private friend, I advised him to have 
nothing to do with so foul a transaction ; that he and I had acted too 
distinguished parts in these transactions to become executioners ; and that I 
was determined that, if the sovereigns wished to put him to death, they should 
appoint an executioner, which should not be me." The Prussian General 



i8i5] FRANCE.— THE HUNDRED DAYS.— WATERLOO. 307 

Muffling states in his " Memoirs," that having been appointed to obtain the 
concurrence of Wellington in the design of Bliicher, that Napoleon should be 
shot in the place where the Duke d'Enghien had been killed, Wellington had 
replied : " Such an act would disgrace our names in history, and posterity 
would say of us, ' They were not worthy to have been the conquerors of 
Napoleon.' " The prisoner of St. Helena repaid this conduct by bequeathing 
ten thousand francs to the man who had attempted to assassinate Wellington, 
during his residence in Paris as the commander of the army of occupation. 
French historians have attempted to justify this odious testamentary 
expression of Napoleon's hatred of his victor, by attributing to Wellington 
that he instigated the banishment to St. Helena. It is now known that, as 
€arly as May, 18 14, the plenipotentiaries at the congress of Vienna decided, in 
secret conference, that if Napoleon should escape from Elba, and should fall 
into the power of the allies, a safer residence should be assigned him, at St. 
Helena or at St. Lucia. 

On the 7th of July the English and Prussian armies entered Paris and 
took possession of all the principal points. Louis XVHL returned on the 
8th. Wellington favored a firm moderation, but the Prussian General 
Bliicher was for revenge. When he had begun to mine the bridge of Jena, 
with the intention to blow it up, because that monument proclaimed a defeat 
of the Prussian arms, " the duke of Wellington," says a French historian, 
" interfered by placing an English sentinel on the bridge itself. A single 
sentinel. He was the British nation ; and if Bliicher had blown up the bridge, 
the act was to be held as a rupture with Great Britain." 

The definite treaty with France was signed on the 20th of November, 
181 5. This left France with the same territory as the treaty of 18 14. The 
general peace of Europe had been settled previously. 



xxn. 



MIS m. 




'HE peace of Europe was settled, as every former peace: 
had been settled, upon a struggle for what the conti- 
nental powers thought most conducive to their own 
advantage. The representatives of Great Britain mani- 
fested a praiseworthy abnegation of more selfish inter- 
ests. Napoleon, at St. Helena, said to O'Meara, " So 
silly a treaty as that made by your ministers for their- 
own country was never known before. You give up every- 
thing and gain nothing." We can now answer that we gained 
everything when we gained a longer period of repose than, 
our modern annals could before exhibit. 

Louis XVni. can scarcely be accused of blood-thirsti- 
ness ; yet his character would have stood better, not only 
with the French people, but with the British, had he not 
sanctioned the condemnation and capital punishment of three 
who had indeed betrayed the trust which the restored 
government had reposed in them, but who had some excuse 
in their inability to resist the fascinations of Napoleon. Talleyrand had 
been unable to accomplish by negotiation as favorable terms for France as. 
he had expected, and he resigned his office as president of the council. 
He was succeeded by the Due de Richelieu, who signed the treaty 
of the 20th of November. While Talleyrand remained in power he, 
as well as Fouche, was anxious that no capital punishments should 
be inflicted upon any of those who were proscribed by an ordinance of 
the 24th of July, for the part they had taken in the return of Napoleon 
in March. Ney, Labedoyere, and Lavalette were advised to place 
themselves in safety by leaving France. They were tardy and irresolute ; the 
friendly warning was useless. Labedoyere was tried by court-martial,' and 
was shot Lavalette, who had been condemned to death by the Cour 
d'Assise, escaped through a stratagem of his wife, who, having visited him in 
prison, was able to disguise her husband in her own dress, remaining herself 
as an object for the possible vengeance of the Royalists. Lavalette was 
assisted to pass the frontier by the generous friendship of three Englishmen, 
—Sir Robert Wilson, Mr. Bruce, and Mr. Hutchinson ; who were tried for 
this offense, and sentenced to three months' imprisonment. The proceeding: 



i824] FRANCE.— LOUIS XVIII. 309 

which most commanded public attention in England was the trial and execu- 
tion of Ney ; for it was held to involve the honor of the duke of Wellington. 
While the trial was proceeding before the chamber of peers, Ney was 
advised to rely for his defense on the capitulation of Paris. His wife had an 
interviewwith Wellington, who had previously expressed his opinion in a let- 
ter to the Prince de la Moskwa, — to the effect that the capitulation related 
exclusively to the military occupation of Paris; that the object of the 12th 
article was to prevent the adoption of any measures of severity, under the 
military authorities of those who made it, toward any persons on account of 
the offices which they filled, or their conduct or their political opinions. 
" But it was never intended, and could not be intended, to prevent either 
the existing French government, under whose authority the French com- 
mander-in-chief must have acted, or any French government which should 
succeed to it, from doing in this respect as it might deem fit." 

The Holy Alliance was a league formed after the fall of Napoleon, by 
the sovereigns of Russia, Austria and Prussia, nominally to regulate the 
state of Christianity in Europe, but really to preserve the power and influ- 
ence of the existing dynasties. Most of the other powers acceded to it, 
and the treaty was formally published in the Frankfort Journal, Februarys 
6th, 18 16. It had really been concluded personally by the sovereigns without 
the countenance of their ministers at Paris, September 26th, 181 5. A 
special article of this treaty excluded forever the members of the Bonaparte 
family from any European throne. This alliance set up as the principle of 
conduct for the allied powers, " the precept of justice, Christian charity, and 
peace," promising to their nations a parental government, guaranteeing- 
fraternity and mutual assistance in all cases, and acknowledging all of the 
Christian name as one nation, united under the only supreme sovereign, Jesus 
Christ. 

The English army had remained for three years in France, to assist Louis 
XVIII. in case of any fresh outbreak. Almost everybody else was forgiven ; 
and Prince Talleyrand, one of the cleverest and most cunning men who ever 
lived, who had risen under Napoleon, worked on still with Louis XVIII. 

It was the saying in France that in their exile the Bourbons had learned 
nothing and forgotten nothing. This was not quite true of Louis XVIII., 
who was clever in an indolent way, and resolved to please the people enough 
to remain where he was till his death, and really gave them a very good 
charter ; only he declared he gave it to them by his free grace as their king, 
and they wanted him to acknowledge that they had forced it from royalty by 
the revolution. But his brother Charles, count of Artois, was much more 
strongly and openly devoted to the old ways that came before the revolution, 
and, as Louis had no children, his accession was dreaded. His eldest son, the 
duke of Angouleme, had no children ; and his second son, the duke of Berri, 
who was married to a Neapolitan princess, was the most amiable and hopeful 
person in the family; but on the 12th of February, 1820, he was stabbed by 
a wretch called Louvet, as he was leaving the opera, and died in a few hours. 



3IO FRANCE.— LOUIS XVIII. [1820 

His infant son, Henry, duke of Bordeaux, was the only hope of the elder 
branch of the Bourbons. 

France was worn out and weary of war, so that little happened in this 
reign, except that the duke of Angouleme made an expedition to assist the 
king of Spain in putting down an insurrection. The French nobility had 
returned to all their titles ; but many of them had lost all their property in 
the revolution, and hung about the court, much needing ofifices and employ- 
ments ; while all the generation who had grown up among the triumphs of 
Napoleon, looked with contempt and dislike at the attempt to revive the old 
manners of conduct and thought. 

The total evacuation of France by the English troops left France to 
recuperate from the great disasters under the revolution and the empire. 
The result of the elections of 1818 seemed to arouse the nation to more 
earnest war. Manuel, Grenier, Camille, Jordan, and Lafayette, were elected. 
A change in the cabinet followed. Great hopes were entertained by the 
Liberalists, but this cabinet was not free in its action and the session of 1819 
produced no great result. The succeeding election turned out favorable to 
the constitutional party, and the government was alarmed and resolved to 
make a strike upon the constitution. They gained the king to their side. 
The liberal ministry was dismissed. The duke of Richelieu was placed anew 
at the head of the ministry. In 1820, laws of execution were passed which 
destroyed the liberty of the press and threatened to complete the abolition 
of representative government. 

On the 5th of May, 1821, died Napoleon Bonaparte. Six years had 
passed since, in the great festival of the Champ de Mai, he had announced 
that the people who had called him to the throne must prepare for war. The 
issue to himself was his imprisonment in this lonely island of the Atlantic, 
long suffering under a chronic disease, and suffering more from his total want 
of power to endure his fate with equanimity. A hurricane swept over the 
island as Napoleon was dying, shaking houses to their foundation, and tearing 
up the largest trees. To Napoleon the war of the elements seemed as if " the 
noise of battle hurtled in the air," and he died muttering the words, Ti'te 
d'Annee. The death of him who had so long filled the world with the terror 
of his name produced no great sensation in England or in Europe. 

The king of France, in opening the chambers at the end of January, 1823, 
left no doubt of the intentions of the French government. Louis XVIII. 
announced that he had recalled his minister at Madrid, and that a hundred 
thousand Frenchmen, commanded by a prince of his family, were ready to 
march to preserve the throne of Spain to a descendant of Henry the Fourth. 
He declared that hostilities should cease at the moment " that Ferdinand the 
Seventh should be free to give his people the institutions which they could 
not hold except from him." The French invaded Spain. England had taken 
her stand upon a principle, but that attitude did not involve the necessity of 
going to war, Mr. Canning declared in parliament that the king's government 
would abide by a system of neutrality, except under certain conditions. If 



1 824] 



FRANCE.— LOUIS XVIII. 



311 



Portugal were to be attacked, such an assault would bring Great Britain into 
the field with all her force to support the independence of her ancient and 
faithful ally. The French armies marched to Madrid, which they occupied 
on the 24th of May. They overran Spain, they accomplished the release 
of Ferdinand who had been detained at Cadiz ; the cortes were overturned. 
Spain entered upon that long night of tyranny and superstition which left her 
among the feeblest and most degraded of nations. Such was the position of 
affairs at the close of 1823. 

On the 15th of August, a month only before the decease of Louis, the 
censorship of journals Avas re-established by a royal ordinance. The state of 
the king's health appeared to the minister, M. de Villele, to require that the 
government should have in its hands this power of controlling the press. 
The good sense of Louis XVIII. , and his desire to govern as far as possible 
in an enlightened and liberal spirit, preserved France during his reign from 
any popular convulsion. Under the charter the struggles of parties were of 
a constitutional character. There were great orators in the chamber of 
deputies who were opposed to the government ; there were bitter satirists in 
prose and verse, such as Courier and Beranger, who attacked the ultra-royalist 
party and the priestly party with unsparing ridicule ; nevertheless, the nation 
had not arrived at the belief that another vital change in its institutions was 
necessary, and was content to confide in the power of the charter gradually 
to repair its own deficiencies. 




PARIS — GARDEN OF THE TUILERIES. 



xxni. 



LESI 





OUIS XVIII. died September i6th. Charles X. came 
to the throne. The French saw the change with 
something like dread, for he was considered the 
representative of ultra-royahst opinions.. He at 
once manifested a soHcitude that the people should 
accept him as a constitutional king. His first act was 
fjf ^ * •«?»-''Uv'^ to abolish the censorship of the journals. He said to 
the peers and deputies that his great desire was to consolidate the 
charter for the happiness of his people. He promised to each 
religious body protection for its worship. The ceremony of 
consecrating the king at Reims was little in accordance with the 
spirit of the age, or the general character of the French. The 
people laughed and sneered when the "moniteur" said : — "There 
is no doubt that the holy oil which will flow on the forehead of 
Charles X. in the solemnity of his consecration, is the same as- 
that which, since the time of Clovis, has consecrated the French 
kings." Napoleon putting the crown upon his own head was a 
fitter type of popular sovereignty in France than Charles X. anointed in seven 
parts of his body by the archbishop of Reims. Nevertheless, the king had 
solemnly promised to maintain the charter, and the obsolete pageantries of 
his coronation were not imputed to him as a fault. The people had soon to 
learn how little dependence could be placed upon the professions, and even 
upon the liberal actions, of their new king, " Without false calculation or 
premeditated deceit, Charles X. wavered from contradiction to contradiction, 
from inconsistency to inconsistency, until the day when, given up to his own 
will and belief, he committed the error which cost him his throne." He was 
at heart '• a true emigrant and a submissive bigot." 

M. de Villele's career, as the chief minister of Louis XVIII. and Charles 
X., had been of a longer duration than might have been expected from the 
discordant elements by which he was surrounded. For six years he had been 
the presiding spirit of the government. When he entered upon power he 
said, " I am born for the end of revolutions." This belief had little of the 
spirit of prophecy, however the prudence and sagacity of this minister might 
have retarded that isolation of the ruler from the ruled, which is the 
beginning of revolutions. The elections of 1827 were unfavorable to the 
government ; and the minister, not having the cordial support of the whole 



1830] FRANCE.— CHARLES X. 313 

Royalist party, was compelled to retire from office. The dauphiness said to 
the king, " In abandoning M. de Villele, you have descended the first step of 
your throne." M. de Martignac became the head of the cabinet which 
replaced that of M. de Villele. His tendencies were liberal and consti- 
tutional ; his talents had not their proper influence either with the king or 
the chambers. He did what was in his power to prevent the measures of 
repression which one party desired, and to carry forward those measures of 
conciliation which he thought would retard a rupture between the throne and 
the nation. Lafayette characterized the policy of Martignac in a very 
significant sentence : " Three steps forward and two backward, we have the 
net product of one little step." To move forward at all, and not have the 
power of carrying the chambers in a retrogressive policy, was held at the 
Tuileries to be the fault of this minister. In August, 1829, a royal ordinance 
appeared changing the whole of the ministry, and finally appointing Prince 
Jules de Polignac president of the council. The prince had been ambassador 
to England ; and many of the French, and not a few of the English, chose 
to believe that he had been appointed to his post through the influence of 
the duke of Wellington, and that his subsequent measures were taken in 
concert with the English cabinet. Sir Robert Peel, on the 2d of November, 
1830, emphatically denied that the government of his country, directly, or indi- 
rectly, had interfered in this appointment. In the choice of Polignac as his 
prime minister, " Charles X.," says M. Guizot, " had hoisted upon the Tuileries 
the flag of the counter-revolution." On the 2d of March, 1830, the chambers 
were opened. There was a half menace in the royal speech, which appeared 
to presage some exercise of arbitrary power. " If criminal maneuvers were 
to place obstacles in the way of my government, which I neither can, nor 
wish to foresee, I should find the power of surmounting them in a resolution 
to maintain the public peace, in the just confidence of the French people, 
and in the devotion which they have always demonstrated for their king." 
The address of the chamber of deputies, which was carried by a majority of 
221 to 181, af^rmed that it was their duty to declare to the king that the 
charter supposed, in order to its working, a concurrence between the mind of 
the sovereign and the interests of his people ; that it was their painful duty 
to declare that such concurrence existed no longer, as the administration 
ordered all its acts upon the supposition of the disaffection of the people. 
The next day the chambers were prorogued till the rst of September. On 
the i6th of May they were dissolved. New elections were ordered for June 
and July, and the parliament so elected was to meet on the 3d of August. 
Most men saw clearly that a great struggle was at hand. The duke of 
Orleans, on the 31st of May, gave a fete in honor of his brother-in-law, the 
king of Naples, at the Palais Royal, at which Charles X. and the royal family 
were present. M. de Salvandy said to the duke of Orleans, " This is truly a 
Neapolitan festival; we are dancing on a volcano." The duke agreed with 
him, adding that he would not have to reproach himself with making no 
effort to open the eyes of the king. " What am I to do ? Nothing is 



314 FRANCE.— CHARLES X. [1824 

listened to. Heaven only knows where they will be in six months. But I 
well know where I shall be. Under any circumstances my family and I 
remain in this palace." 

On the 1 2th of July, during the progress of the French elections, the 
news arrived of the capture of Algiers. For two or three years the French 
government had been carrying on a small war against that barbarian power. 

On Monday morning, the 26th of July, while the population of Paris 
were quietly proceeding to their various duties or pleasures, Paris was shaken 
to its center as by a political earthquake. Before the doors of the Bourse 
were opened, the holders of stock were crowding thither to sell. More 
important than the operations of commerce were the proceedings of the 
journalists. The proprietors and editors of the chief opposition papers took 
a wise and prudent course in the first instance. They consulted the most 
eminent lawyers, who gave their opinion that the ordinances were illegal, and 
ought not to be submitted to. One of the judges of the Tribunal of First 
Instance authorized the Journal of Cojumerce to continue its publication 
provisionally, because the ordinances had not been promulgated in legal 
forms. Forty-four conductors of newspapers assembled at the office of the 
National, signed a protest in which they declared their intention to 
resist the ordinances as regarded their own interests, and invited the deputies 
to meet on the 3d of August as if no decree had gone forth for new 
elections. The government, said this protest, has this day lost that character 
of legality which commands obedience , we resist it as far as we are con- 
cerned ; it remains for France to judge how far it should carry its own 
resistance. On that Monday there was no appearance of popular insurrec- 
tion. There was occasionally a cry in the streets of " Long live the Charter ! 
— Down with the ministers ! " 

The next day a more ominous cry went forth — " Up with Liberty — 
Down with the Bourbons ! " The provisions of the decrees respecting the 
Press were to be carried through by naked force. Four of the most popular 
journals had been printed without the license which was required by the 
ordinance. Sentinels were placed around the offices to prevent their sales ; 
but copies of thd journals, which not only contained the ordinances, but the 
protest of the journalists, were thrown out of the windows, and were quickly 
circulated ^throughout Paris. The old scenes of the revolution of 1789 were 
rapidly developed. In the Palais Royal, and other public places, men 
mounted upon chairs read the ordinances and the bitter comments upon 
them to assembled crowds. The steps taken by the police to prevent the 
further issue of these papers were calculated to stimulate the excitement of 
the people into absolute fury. The doors of the offices where they were 
printed were broken open, and the presses rendered unserviceable. The 
printers thrown out of their employ joined the crowds in the streets ; and 
they are not a class to be injured without lifting up their voices against the 
wrong. In the course of that Tuesday the resistance to the acts of the 
government began to be transferred to men who might have been able to 



1S30] FRANCE.— CHARLES X. 315 

guide its course more safely than the declamation of the journalist or the 
passions of the populace. The deputies were beginning to arrive in Paris. 
M. Guizot describes how, on reaching the city on the morning of the 27th, he 
found a note from M. Casimir Perier, inviting him to a meeting of some of 
their colleagues. **A few hours before," he says, "and within a short 
distance of Paris, the decrees were unknown to me ; and, by the side of 
legal opposition, I saw on my arrival revolutionary and unchained insurrec- 
tion." He went to the meeting at the house of M. Casimir Perier and was 
selected with two others to draw up a protest in the name of the deputies 
against the decrees. This protest was adopted on the 28th and signed by 
sixty-three deputies. 

Then followed the fearful " three days of July." The people were aroused 
against the king. From daybreak multitudes had begun to assemble, armed 
with sticks and pikes, old guns and sabers. They unpaved the streets ; they 
.threw up barricades of timber and of carts filled with the paving-stones; they 
seized the Hotel de Ville ; they hoisted the tri-colored flag on its roof, and 
on the towers of Notre-Dame. The bells of the municipal palace and of the 
metropolitan church again called the citizens to arms as in the days of the 
first revolution. Terror was in every family now as then ; but there were no 
frightful excesses, no sanguinary scenes of popular vengeance, to make even 
the name of liberty hateful. The people stood prepared for the struggle with 
the regular troops that were coming upon them — for Paris, on that morning 
of the 28th, had been declared by the government to be in a state of siege. 
Marmont had not begun to act after receiving the ordinance, which thus 
declared that the military power was the sole arbiter, before the insurgents 
were in possession of the chief part of the capital. He finally formed his 
troops in four columns, which were directed upon different points. It was 
not long before the sanguinary conflict began. It would be beyond the object 
of this history, even if it were in the power of the writer, to furnish a clear 
detail in- a small compass of the struggles of this memorable day. Those who 
witnessed some of the many occurrences which were proceeding simulta- 
neously in distant parts of Paris felt this difficulty in the subsequent discharge 
of their official duty. " The events," said M. Martignac, in the defense of 
Polignac, "so press upon, jostle and confound each other, that the imagination 
can scarcely follow them, or the understanding range them in order." The 
first serious fighting appears to have taken place in the narrow street of 
St. Antoine, which was closed by barricades. From the houses approaching 
this street paving-stones, broken bottles, and even articles of furniture, were 
showered upon the heads of the unfortunate soldiery. The column which 
was ordered to force this street returned to the Tuileries where Marmont had 
his head-quarters. Another column had to sustain on obstinate fight about 
the Hotel de Ville. The general who commanded the troops obtained posses- 
sion of the place, but he was compelled to confine his resistance to the popu- 
lace to defensive operations. Another column lost many men at the March6 
des Innocens. The fourth column sustained less loss. Night came on. The 



3i6 FRANCE.— CHARLES X. [1824 

firing was still continued ; the tocsin was rung from every church ; the lamps 
were extinguished in the streets. Neither mail nor diligence left Paris. The 
communication with the provinces by telegraph was cut off. During the 
afternoon five deputies headed by M. Lafitte had waited upon Marshal 
Marmont at the Tuileries to ask for a suspension of hostilities, that in the 
interval they might send a deputation to the king. The marshal said he could 
only dispatch a messenger to the king to inform him of the proceedings of 
the assembled deputies and of the state of affairs in Paris. His aide-de-camp 
received at St. Cloud a verbal answer directing Marmont to hold out, to 
collect his forces, and to act in masses. In conformity with these orders the 
column which had held the Hotel de Ville returned at midnight to the Tuil- 
eries, having left in the streets several hundred men killed or wounded. The 
king in his suburban palace had no conception of the magnitude of the 
danger ; but was passing his evening at cards, while the court routine went 
forward as if the distant boom of the cannon was a sound which should 
inspire no fear and awaken little sympathy. 

On the 28th the working classes had almost exclusively borne the burnt 
of the battle. On the morning of the 29th, hostilities had again commenced 
by seven o'clock. National Guards, young students, and even deputies, were 
now at the barricades. The stately Faubourg St. Germain was now as ready 
for battle as the dingy Faubourg St. Antoine. The posts of the Luxembourg 
were disarmed. At a very early hour several Royalists of high rank went to 
the Tuileries and had an interview with Marmont and Polignac. They urged 
the minister to recall the ordinances. He was calm and polite, but would 
promise nothing. He would consult his colleagues. They then suggested to 
Marmont that he should arrest the ministers. He seemed somewhat inclined 
to take their advice, when Peyronnet, one of the most obnoxious of the cabi- 
net, came in, and exclaimed, " What ! are you not gone yet ? " They had 
stated their intention to go to St. Cloud. They set out, but Polignac got 
there before them. According to M. Guizot, the Duke de Mortemart, Messrs. 
de S^monville, d'Argout, de Vitrolles, and de Sussy, were " the enlightened 
Royalists who attempted to give legal satisfaction to the country, and to bring 
about an arrangement between the inert royalty at St. Cloud and the boiling 
revolution at Paris. But when they demanded an audience of the king they 
were met by the unseasonable hour, by etiquette, the countersign, and repose." 
From Charles X., whose inconsistency in this trying hour of his destiny was 
as remarkable as in all his previous actions, they at last extorted a promise 
for the dismissal of the Polignac ministry, the appointment of the Duke de 
Montemart as president of the council, and for other appointments which 
would be a guarantee for constitutional government. Still the king lingered 
and delayed the proper signatures till late in the day to the necessary ordi- 
nances. The Duke de Mortemart, who set out on his return to Paris without 
a proper passport, met with a succession of interruptions from the royal 
guards. He had equal difficulty with the people in passing the barricades. 
The battle was raging all round Marmont at the Tuileries. The detachment 



i830] FRANCE.— CHARLES X. 317 

at the Palais Bourbon was attacked, and the commander retired with his troops 
into the garden, and promised to be neutral. The Louvre was surrounded by 
masses of the populace, of whom a great number fell by the fire of the Swiss 
from the windows. At the Place Vendome two regiments of the line were 
stationed, and a remnant of the gendarmerie. They were surrounded by the 
people, who, manifesting no inclination to regard the soldiers as enemies, the 
whole body of the troops, with their officers, went over to the side of the 
insurgents. On a second attack the Swiss were driven from the Louvre. 
The defection of the army, which was beginning to spread, proclaimed to 
Marmont that it was impossible to continue this contest. The insurrection 
had become a revolution. He hastily quitted the Tuileries with his troops to 
repair to St. Cloud. The populace as quickly broke into the palace. The 
tri-color was hoisted on the staff where the white flag of the Bourbons had 
floated for fifteen years. The deputies who had met in the morning had 
determined to establish a provisional government. Lafayette, who had 
received from them the command of the forces in Paris, had, in the uniform of 
a National Guard, gone to take possession of the Hotel de Ville. Upon the 
news of the defection of the two regiments, and the capture of the Louvre 
and the Tuileries, a municipal commission that had been formed by ballot, 
with authority to take all measures that the public safety might require, 
installed themselves at the Hotel de Ville, surrounded by dead bodies heaped 
upon the Place. In a few hours the National Guard was organized ; the 
administration of finance was provided for ; the post-office was again set in 
action ; the mails and the diligences left Paris bearing the tri-color flag. 
Three of the Royalists who had been at St. Cloud arrived at ten o'clock at 
night with the ordinances already mentioned, and with a further ordinance, 
repealing those of the 25th of July, and appointing the chamber of deputies 
to meet on the 3d of August. The three Royalists from St. Cloud came to 
negotiate for the preservation of the crown to Charles X. They were inter- 
rupted by cries of " It is too late ! " The sovereignty of France had vanished 
from the grasp of the elder branch of the Bourbons. 

On the 30th of July the deputies who had held their previous meetings 
at private houses met more formally in the hall of the chamber of deputies, 
inviting their absent colleagues to join them there. They came to a resolu- 
tion of soliciting the duke of Orleans, who was at his country seat at Neuilly, 
to repair to the capital to assume the functions of lieutenant-general of the 
kingdom. Forty deputies signed this resolution. Three only declined being 
parties to it, considering this as a decisive step toward a change of dynasty. 
On the 31st the deputies so assembled published a proclamation which thus 
commenced : " France is free ! Absolute power elevated its standard ; the 
heroic population of Paris has beaten it down. Paris, under attack, has made 
the sacred cause triumph by arms which had succeeded already through the 
constitutional elections." The proclamation then announced that the depu- 
ties, in anticipation of the regular concurrence of the chambers, had invited a 
true Frenchman, one who had never fought but for France — the duke of 



3i8 FRANCE.— CHARLES X. [1824 

Orleans — to exercise the functions of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. 
"We shall secure to ourselves by law all the guarantees we require to render 
liberty strong and permanent." On the ist of August the duke of Orleans 
was at the Palais Royal, had accepted the office, and proceeded on horseback 
to the Hotel de Ville, as a mark of courtesy to the National Guard, and to 
their commander, Lafayette. M. Guizot relates that the deputies accom- 
panied the duke on foot across the barricades. Women and children sur- 
rounded them, dancing and singing the Marseillaise. Cries and questions of 
every kind burst incessantly from the crowd. Who was that gentleman on 
horseback? was he a prince? A hope was expressed that he was not a Bour- 
bon. " I was much more deeply impressed," says Guizot, "by our situation 
in the midst of that crowd, and their attitude, than even by the scene which 
followed a few moments after at the Hotel de Ville. What future perils 
already reveal themselves for that new-born monarchy ! " Lafayette, sur- 
rounded by his staff, advanced to the steps to meet the duke, who cordially 
embraced him. In the great hall the proclamation of the deputies was read, 
and received with cheers. The lieutenant-general of the kingdom advanced 
to the window, holding Lafayette by the hand and waving the tri-color flag. 
He then appointed provisional ministers, of whom M. Guizot was minister of 
the interior. Meanwhile it was known at St. Cloud that the king's authority 
was at an end. The crowd of courtiers quickly dropped off from him. Li 
his restlessness he went to Trianon and then to Rambouillet. He was still 
surrounded by a large body of soldiery. On the 2d of August he addressed 
a letter to the duke of Orleans, inclosing a formal act of abdication in favor 
of his grandson, the duke of Bordeaux. Remaining at Rambouillet with 
numerous soldiers around him, the provisional government began to be uneasy 
as to the possibility of another conflict. Three commissioners were sent to 
confer with Charles and to urge him to depart. Their recommendations were 
backed by the presence of six thousand of the National Guard, who marched 
to Rambouillet, accompanied by vast numbers of Parisians on foot and in 
vehicles of every description. The king consented to leave, and to proceed 
to Cherbourg, escorted by the garde-du-corps. Throughout his journey the 
unfortunate king and his family received no indignities from the people, but 
they saw on every steeple the tri-colored flag, and the tri-colored cockade in 
many a hat. They embarked for England on the i6th, and were carried to 
the coast of Devonshire, the king having decided that England should be his 
place of refuge. For a short time he resided at Lulworth castle. He subse- 
quently occupied Holyrood House. Some ultra-liberals in Edinburgh having 
shown an inclination to treat the fallen monarch with disrespect upon his 
arrival, Sir Walter Scott published a manly and touching appeal to the more 
honorable feelings of his fellow citizens. " If there can be any who retain 
angry or invidious recollections of late events in France, they ought to remark 
that the ex-monarch has, by his abdication, renounced the conflict into which, 
perhaps, he was engaged by bad advisers ; that he can no longer be the object 



1830] FRANCE.— CHARLES X. 319 

of resentment to the brave, but remains to all the most striking emblem of 
the mutability of human affairs which our mutable times have afforded." 

On the 3d of August the duke of Orleans opened the legislative session 
in the chamber of deputies. In that chamber during the next four days 
there was a partial opposition from the adherents of the fallen dynasty 
against the manifest tendency to a solution of the difficult question of a future 
government by the appointment of the duke of Orleans as king. The charter 
of Louis XVIIL received some alterations, and then it was declared by a 
large majority, that, subject to the acceptance of the modified charter, 
the universal and urgent interests of the French nation called to the throne 
the duke of Orleans. On the 9th of August the duke of Orleans in the 
chamber of deputies declared his acceptance of the crown with the title 
king of the French, and took this oath : " In the presence of God, I swear to 
observe faithfully the constitutional charter, with the modifications expressed 
in the declaration ; to govern only by the laws and according to the laws ; to 
cause good and true justice to be rendered to each according to his right ; and 
to act in all things only with a view to the interest, the happiness, and the 
glory of the French people." 

" While two American packets, escorted by two French men-of-war, 
rapidly conveyed the old king and his family from France, all France hastened 
to Paris." An English historian may add that no inconsiderable portion of 
the population of this kingdom were, as he himself witnessed, looking with 
intense interest upon the localities of the great events of the three days. Some 
were fraternizing with National Guards in the cafes ; others were mingling in 
a crowd of all nations at the evening receptions of General Lafayette ; a 
privileged few were banqueting at some shady guinguette with a great 
company of French, English, Belgian and Polish hberals, whose fervid 
eloquence seemed the prelude to a very unsettled future of European society. 
There was, however, so much to admire in the conduct of the French people, 
that although the traces of carnage were everywhere around — although men 
of education joined their voices in the common cry of '' death to the ministers," 
as an atonement for the blood of the slain whose graves were daily strewn 
with immortelles, — the old idea of revolution had lost something of its terrors. 
There had been more bold speaking at our elections for the new parliament 
than was considered in some quarters safe or decorous. Yet the sympathy of 
the British population with the revolution of France was not to be mistaken 
for an approbation of leveling and destructive doctrines, such as had led 
astray many enthusiasts among us in 1789. It was a "contrast to the first 
revolution ; " it " vindicated the cause of knowledge and liberty, showing how 
humanizing to all classes of society are the spread of thought and information, 
and improved political institutions." The sympathy was too manifest to be 
set at naught by the government of this country, even if it had been as much 
disposed to uphold " a royal rebellion against society," as it was the fashion 
unjustly to ascribe to the great warrior who was the head of the cabinet. 
He, it has been stated, was for a short time perplexed and undecided. " When 



320 



FRANCE.— LOUIS PHILIPPE. 



[1830 



nothing was known beyond the ordinances of July, some one asked the duke 
of Wellington, ' What are we to think of this ? ' ' It is a new dynasty,' 
answered the duke. ' And what course shall you take ?' inquired his friend. 
' First, a long silence, and then we will concert with our allies what we shall 
say.' " A wiser and nobler policy than that was adopted. It was a speedy 
recognition of the new government. 




f'URING the six-years in which Louis Philippe was 
king of the French, his reign was exempted from 
solicitudes of a more painful nature than the 
ordinary cares of monarchs. In the first two years 
of his rule events had been in some degree 
propitious to him. The duke of Reichstadt, the 
son of Napoleon, died in 1832. His presence in 



France might at any time have raised up a host of Bonapartists, 
whose movements might have been exceedingly dangerous to the 
citizen king. The attempts of the duchess of Berri to excite an 
insurrection in favor of her son, the duke of Bordeaux, had signally 
failed. Freedom of debate in the chambers, and the liberty of the 
press, appeared the best guarantees for the security of the consti- 
tional government. But the unrestricted power of speaking and 
writing was not used with moderation. The license of the press, 
and the occasional hostility of the chambers, produced a counter-disposition 
on the part of the king to struggle against what he believed to be the evils of 
the representative system. There were constant changes of administration 
since Lafitte took the reins of government in November, 1830. In 1831 
Lafitte was succeeded by Casimir Perier, who had a premiership of something 
more than a year and a half. From October, 1832, to September, 1836, there 
had been nine changes of ministry — Soult, Guizot ; Soult, Broglie ; Soult, 
Thiers ; Gerard ; Bassano ; Mortier ; Broglie, Humann ; Broglie, d'Argout ; 
Thiers. In September, 1836, the heads of the cabinet were Mole and Guizot. 
During these changes, and the consequent excitement of parliamentary 
conflicts, there had been more than one conspiracy of which the great object 
was to assassinate the king. The 28th of July, 1835, was the second day of the 
fetes to commemorate the revolution of 1830. Louis Philippe with his three 
sons and a splendid suite of military ofificers, was riding through the line of 
the National Guard, drawn up on the Boulevard du Temple, when an explosion, 
resembling a discharge of musketry took place from the window of a house 
overlooking the road. Fourteen persons, among whom were Marshal 



1848] FRANCE.— LOUIS PHILIPPE. 321 

Mortier and General De Virginy, were killed upon the spot. A shower of 
bullets had been discharged by a machine consisting of twenty-five barrels, 
which, arranged horizontally side by side upon a frame, could be fired at once 
by a train of gunpowder. The king was unhurt. The police rushed into the 
house and seized the assassin, who was wounded by the bursting of one of the 
barrels. He proved to be a Corsican named Fieschi, who maintained that he 
had no object in this wholesale massacre but his desire to destroy the king. 
Another attempt upon the life of Louis Philippe was made in 1836, by a man 
of the name of Alibaud, who fired into the king's carriage, the queen and his 
sister being with him. A third attempt was made in the same year by another 
desperado, named Meunier. In the history of such fearful manifestations of 
wickedness or madness, there is nothing more remarkable than the extra- 
ordinary escapes of Louis Philippe, as if he bore a charmed life. 

More interesting at the present day than these brutal attempts at 
assassination was the failure of an enterprise which contemplated, without any 
apparent organization, the overthrow of a strong government by a young man 
of tv/enty-five, who relied only upon his name, his abilities, and his daring. 
Charles Louis Napoleon, the youngest son of Louis Bonaparte, king of 
Holland, and of Hortense Eugenie, daughter of the Empress Josephine by 
her first husband, had so dwelt upon his boyish remembrances of his 
illustrious uncle, that when in 1832 the duke of Reichstadt died, and he 
became, according to a decree of 1804, heir to the throne, the natural course 
of his ambition was to assert his claim against one whom he regarded as a 
usurper. Louis Philippe was always apprehensive of the rivalry of this young 
man. He had refused him permission to return to France in 1830. He had 
further influenced the government of Rome to order him to quit the Papal 
territory. Escaping from Italy, he resided with his mother in the Chateau 
Arenenberg in Switzerland, where he devoted himself to the study of politics 
and of military science, and became known in Europe as a writer of diligent 
research and unquestionable ability. Whatever study he pursued and 
whatever ideas he promulgated had evidently some bearing upon what he 
implicitly believed would be his great future. 

The ordinary relations of the attempt of Louis Napoleon — availing himself 
of the general unpopularity of the king of the French, to risk the result of a 
popular commotion to overthrow the Orleans dynasty — have recently received 
a new interest from the ofificial revelations of M. Guizot. He relates that on 
the evening of the 31st of October the minister of the interior brought to him 
a telegraphic dispatch received from Strasbourg, dated on the evening of the 
30th, which announced that about six o'clock that morning Louis Napoleon 
"traversed the streets of Strasbourg with a party of . . . ." A mist which 
enveloped the line of telegraph had left the remainder of the dispatch 
uncertain. Guizot and the minister of the interior repaired instantly to the 
Tuileries, where they found the whole cabinet assembled. All was conjecture. 
Instructions were drawn up founded upon many possible contingencies. The 
ministers remained with the king nearly the whole night, expecting news 



322 FRANCE.— LOUIS PHILIPPE. [1830 

which came not. During those hours of suspense, the queen, the king's sister, 
the princes, entered again and again to ask if anything had transpired. " I 
was struck," says M. Guizot, " by the sadness of tlie king, not that he seemed 
uneasy or subdued, but uncertainty as to the seriousness of the event occupied 
his thoughts ; and these reiterated conspiracies, these attempts at civil war, 
repubHcan, legitimist, and Bonapartist, this continual necessity of contending, 
repressing, and punishing, weighed on him as a hateful burden. Despite his 
long experience and all that it had taught him of man's passions and the 
vicissitudes of life, he was, and continued to be, naturally easy, confiding, 
benevolent, and hopeful. He grew tired of having incessantly to watch, to 
defend himself, and of finding so many enemies on his steps. 

The next morning, the ist of November, an aide-de-camp of the com- 
mandant at Strasbourg brought to the perplexed king and his ministers a 
solution of the telegraphic mystery. Louis Napoleon, having the support 
of a colonel who commanded a battalion, had presented himself at the 
barrack of a regiment of artillery, and was received with shouts of " Long 
live the emperor." At another barrack the attempts of the prince upon the 
fidelity of the troops was repulsed ; and he and his followers were arrested 
by the colonel and other officers of the forty-sixth regiment of infantry. 
The affair was over in a few hours without bloodshed. One only of the 
known adherents of Louis Napoleon, M. de Persigny, his intimate friend, 
effected his escape. On ascertaining the result of this rash enterprise, queen 
Hortense, whose affection for her son was most devoted, hurried to France 
to intercede for him with the government. From Viry, near Paris, she 
addressed her supplications to the king and M. Mole. M. Guizot says, "She 
might have spared them. The resolution of not bringing Prince Louis to 
trial, and of sending him to the United States of America, was already taken. 
This was the decided inclination of the king, and the unanimous advice of 
the cabinet." The adventurer was brought from the citadel of Strasbourg 
to Paris, where he stayed only a few hours. He was then taken to L'Orient, 
where he embarked on the 14th of November in a frigate which was to touch 
at New York. The sub-prefect of L'Orient waited on the prince when he 
was on board, inquired whether he would find any resources when he arrived 
in the United States, and being told that none were at first to be expected, 
the prefect placed in his hands a casket containing fifteen thousand francs 
in gold, which the king had ordered him thus to appropriate. Louis Napo- 
leon remained in the United States till October, 1837, when, hearing of the 
illness of his mother, he encountered the risks of a return to Europe and 
was with Hortense at her death. The French government demanded his 
extradition from Switzerland. The Cantons refused to comply : but Louis 
Philippe enforced his demand by the irresistible argument of an army, and 
the prince withdrew to England. The fashionable circles of London regarded 
him merely as a man of pleasure, and he was popular in country houses from 
the spirit with which he could follow hounds in a fox-chase. His attempt at 



1848] FRANCE.— LOUIS PHILIPPE. 323 

Strasbourg had only excited laughter here. He was not generally regarded 
as possessing any force of character that would justify a lofty ambition. 

The exclusion of France from the European alliance came very nearly 
precipitating France and England into a war. M. Thiers, then president of 
the council, showed no desire to calm the passion that had burst out in 
France in the belief that the nation had been insulted. The duke of Well- 
ington, with his usual strong sense, rightly interpreted the disposition of the 
people and of the government of this kingdom. In a private letter of the 
5th of October he thus expressed himself: '• God send that we may preserve 
peace between these two great countries, and for the world I I am certain 
that there is no desire in this country on the part of any party, I may almost 
say of any influential individual, to quarrel with, much less to do anything 
offensive toward France. But, if we should be under the necessity of going 
to war, you will witness the most extraordinary exertions ever made by this 
or any country, in order to carry the same on with vigor, however undesirable 
we may think it to enter into it." Upon the conduct of Lord Palmerston, 
then secretary of state for foreign affairs, there was some diversity of 
opinion at home. Even members of the cabinet were not wholly in accord 
with his policy, and many of the public held that he was rash and obstinate. 
His policy was signally triumphant. Although the cry of the Parisians for a 
few months was, "Guerre aux Anglais," the French government found that 
their country was not in a condition to go to war, and that the popular cry 
for hostilities had some association with revolutionary tendencies. After the 
lapse of twenty-one years, M. Guizot had published his Memoirs of that 
stirring time, when he- was ambassador in England. His intelligent and 
candid revelations may present to those who are curious to trace the move- 
ments and counter-movements of two such adroit players in the great game 
of politics as M. Thiers and Lord Palmerston, a juster view of the causes of 
this temporary interruption of the friendly feelings between the two govern- 
ments and of the policy of the British minister for foreign affairs, than they 
could otherwise derive from the contemporary expressions of opinion either 
in England or in France. 

The resolutions of the four powers upon which the treaty of the 15th 
of July was founded had become known in London on the 23d. At the anni- 
versary of the 28th of July, when sixty thousand men were under arms in 
Paris, the popular desire for war was shown in the most marked manner. 
M. Guizot was perplexed by the contrast of the uneasiness of Lord Melbourne 
and Lord John Russell with the decided language of Lord Palmerston. In 
answer to the ambassador's dispatches, M. Thiers had only one word to 
reply — ''tcnez ferine,'' but the warlike minister invited him to a meeting with 
the king and himself at the Chateau d'Eu on the 7th of August. Guizot 
left London for this interview on the 6th. While he was crossing the 
channel to Calais another person was crossing the channel to Boulogne, to be 
the hero of what was then described as " a wild attempt to excite civil war 



324 FRANCE.— LOUIS PHILIPPE. [1830 

made by a maniac of the Bonaparte family." The maniac of 1840 became 
the emperor of 1852. 

On the 7th of July the French frigate La Belle Poule, commanded by the 
Prince de Joinville, had sailed for the purpose of receiving at St Helena, and 
transporting to France, the remains of the Emperor Napoleon. To this 
somewhat strange request of the government of Louis Philippe made by M. 
Guizot, the English cabinet accorded its consent, Lord Palmerston giving 
a courteous reply to the demand, while he was unable to conceal a passing 
smile. At this time Prince Louis Napoleon was residing at Carlton Gardens, 
in London, and M. Guizot had been required to keep an eye on his move- 
ments. The ambassador described the refugee as being constantly in the 
park ; as frequently also at the opera, where aides-de-camp stood behind him 
in his box. In public they were bragging and ostentatious. Their private 
life was idle and obscure. In spite of their tall talk M. Guizot thought there 
was little of reality in their boastful projects. The French foreign ofifice, 
however, believed that some attempt would be made by this party of 
Bonapartists, although their action would be confined to a very narrow circle. 

On the 4th of August a steam packet, the City of Edinburgh, which had 
been hired as for a party of pleasure, left the port of London, bearing Prince 
Louis Napoleon, Count Montholon, and about forty officers and attendants. 
Arms and ammunition, military uniforms, horses and carriages and a large 
quantity of specie, had been previously taken on board; with. a tame eagle 
that the prince had taught to feed out of his hand. The steam-packet 
dropped down the river, took a French pilot on board at Gravesend, and 
made for the French coast, where it arrived on the evening of the 5th. 
Between two and three miles to the north of Boulogne is the miserable 
village of Wimereux, around which, in 1803,- a camp was formed of a portion 
of the Grand Army for the invasion of England. The country here is barren, 
and a few hovels lie betAveen the sand hills on the shore. Here, at the 
mouth of a petty stream, Napoleon caused a port to be formed, which at 
the end' of six months was capable of containing a hundred and seventy 
vessels. It is now choked up and altogether decayed. Here, then, sur- 
rounded by associations with the memory of the great emperor — in the 
harbor whioh his army had dug out of the sands, and in view of the column 
which they had raised to his glory — the nephew landed with his followers at 
four o'clock on the morning of the 6th. Those of military rank had 
exchanged their ordinary dress for the uniform then worn by French officers. 
The invading band, who had been joined from Boulogne by a young lieu- 
tenant of the 42d, named Aladenise, and three soldiers, marched toward the 
town, bearing a tri-colored flag surmounted by an eagle. There were few 
persons about at that hour except two or three officers of the customs, who 
were compelled to march with them. Upon arriving at the guard-house in 
the Place d'Anton, an attempt to seduce the soldiers failed, and the party 
marched to the Quai de la Caserne. The barrack there, now given up to 
peaceful purposes as a vast storehouse, was occupied by the 42d regiment. 



1848] FRANCE.— LOUIS PHILIPPE. 325 

The officers slept out of the barrack, and had not arrived at five o'clock, 
when Lieutenant Aladenise called up the soldiers, ordering them to take their 
arms, and march with the nephew of the emperor to Paris ; Louis Philippe, 
he told them, had ceased to reign. The proposed march was, however, 
interrupted by the arrival of Captain Puygelier and two other officers. To 
the splendid offers that were made to the captain and his companions they 
turned a deaf ear. The captain was as unmoved by the threats of some of 
his men as by the promises of the adventurers. To the shouts of Vive Ic 
Prince Louis he replied Vive Ic Roi. A scuffle ensued, when a shot was fired 
from a pistol which Louis Napoleon had in his hand, by which a grenadier was 
wounded. The prince was not absolutely charged v.-ith a murderous inten- 
tion in thus discharging his pistol, but it was implied that this part of the 
affair was an accident, or at least unpremeditated. Immediately after this 
the barrack-yard was cleared of the intruders, and they marched to the 
Haute Ville, distributing proclamations and throwing about money. They 
fancied they could seize arms in the old chateau for the purpose of arming 
the population, but their course was stopped by the sub-prefect of Boulogne, 
who in the name of the king commanded them to disperse. He was 
answered by a blow on the head with the eagle which one of the officers 
carried. They tried to force the door of the chateau. During- this time the 
rappel had called out the National Guard, who marched out toward 
Wimereux, to do battle with a large force which they were told had landed 
there. It was now six o'clock. Failing in the attempt to force the chateau, 
unsupported by any portion of the population, there was nothing left to the 
adventurers but flight to the place of their debarkation. With a mad move- 
ment of defiance they marched on the Calais road, and then stopped at the 
Napoleon column, instead of proceeding over the hill to Wimereux. The 
first stone of the column had been laid by Marshal Soult in 1804. Left 
unfinished under the empire, it had been proceeded with under Louis 
XVIII., " as a monument of peace." Louis Philippe, whose doubtful policy 
was to revive the national appetite for glory which belonged to the memory 
of Napoleon, was in 1840 finishing this column. But the statue of the great 
emperor by which it is crowned was not placed there till 1841. The prince 
and his party surrounded the monument, while the eagle-bearer entered the 
column to plant the standard on its summit. He was left to mount the dark 
stairs while his leader and his companions made a hasty retreat before the 
large force that Avas now coming against them. The soldiery, commanded 
by Captain Puygelier, with the National Guards and gendarmerie under the 
orders of the sub-prefect and the mayor, rendered resistance vain. Some 
fled into the fields. Louis Napoleon and five or six others got down to the 
sands to the north of the harbor. The prince threw himself into the sea and 
swam to a little boat. The National Guard fired upon the fugitives, of whom 
one man was killed and another dangerously wounded. An inhabitant of 
Cologne, who had been one of the National Guard in 1840, expressed to us 
the indifination which he felt at beholding men who were swimming for their 



326 FRANCE.— LOUIS PHILIPPE, [1830 

lives being fired upon when their power of doing mischief was at an end, 
Louis Napoleon swam back and surrendered himself. He was taken to the 
duno-eon of the chateau, where he remained two days before being conveyed 

to Paris. 

The trial of the prince and of nineteen other conspirators took place on 
the 6th of October before the chamber of peers. Louis Napoleon main- 
tained a bold front upon his trial. In the speech which he addressed to his 
judges he said, " I represent before you a principle, a cause, a defeat ; the 
principle, it is the sovereignty of the people ; the cause, that of the empire ; 
the defeat, Waterloo. The principle you have recognized ; the cause you 
have served : the defeat you desire to avenge." He was sentenced to impris- 
onment for life ; his companions to various terms of confinement. The 
prison of Louis Napoleon was the fortress of Ham in the department of 
Aisne. The six years of solitude which he there passed were not unprofit- 
ably employed in study. In 1846 he escaped in the dress of a workman, and 
again found a refuge in England. The Paris press of 1840 teemed with 
denunciations against the ministers of Queen Victoria, maintaining that they 
had encouraged the prince in his project, being angry with the government 
of Louis Philippe. It was asserted that Lord Palmerston had made a visit 
to Louis Napoleon, or had been visited by him, previous to his departure. 
Lord Palmerston found it necessary to assure upon his honor le Baron de 
Bourqueney, who represented the French embassy in the absence of M. 
Guizot, that neither he nor Lord Melbourne had seen Louis Napoleon for 
two years, nor any one of the adventurers who had accompaied him. 

The conferences at the Chateau d'Eu were soon terminated. The king 
of the French went to Boulogne to express his thanks to the inhabitants for 
their loyalty on the 6th of August. To a deputation of the English he said 
that affairs between France and England were taking a favorable turn. M. 
Guizot returned to England, and was satisfied by the cordiality of his recep- 
tion by the authorities and populace of Ramsgate that the English people 
bore no ill-will toward France. Arrived in London, he found an invitation 
from the queen to visit her at Windsor, where he met the king and queen 
of the Belgians, Lord Melbourne and Lord Palmerston. 

Looking at the execution of the treaty of the 15th of July, M. Guizot 
frankly acknowledges the errors of the policy of the French government. 
" We had attached to this question an exaggerated importance ; we had 
regarded the interests of France in the Mediterranean as more associated 
than they really were with the fortunes of Mehemet Ali." France had, he 
says, believed that Mehemet Ali would have been able to resist all the efforts 
of the four powers united, when it was finally shown that an English 
squadron would be sufficient to subdue him. These errors, he continues, 
were public, national, everywhere spread, and maintained in the chambers as 
well as in the country, in the opposition as well as in the government. 
" The hour of disappointment was come, and it was the cabinet over 
which M. Thiers presided which had to bear the burden." Louis Philippe 



1S48] FRANCE.— LOUIS PHILIPPE. 327 

refused his assent to the warlike speech which. M. Thiers proposed for the 
opening of the chambers. The ministry resigned, and Souk and Guizot 
were tlieir successors. 

The belligerent spirit which had been called forth in France by these 
differences between the English and French governments were not likely to 
subside into cordial friendship under the influence of a pageant which 
recalled the glories and the humiliations of the empire. The population of 
Paris had the gratification of a magnificent spectacle on the 15th of 
December, when the remains of Napoleon were interred in the church of the 
Invalides. The procession has been described as wearing more of a 
triumphant than a funeral air. Long cavalcades of troops were succeeded 
by a few mourning coaches ; grenadiers of the Old Guard and Mamelukes 
followed the splendid car on whicn was placed the body. Imperial eagles 
veiled with crape were carried by eighty-six non-commissioned officers. 
Even to the sword and the hat of the emperor, which were laid upon the 
coffin, the whole solemnity was calculated to call up remembrances of the 
past \\hich were not favorable to the security of the reigning family. There 
was no tumult ; but there were demonstrations of popular feeling which 
showed that the pacific policy of the king and of his new ministry was not 
so welcome to the populace as M. Thiers and war with Europe. 

Again there was a threatened rupture between France and England in 
1844, growing out of the action of a missionary consul in the island of Tahiti, 
but it was settled by the kindly offices of M. Guizot and Sir Robert Peel. 
Louis Philippe visited the queen at Windsor Castle, where he was entertained 
for a week. 

Louis negotiated a marriage between his third son, the Prince de Join- 
ville, and the princess of Brazil, and by this match he gained an immense 
dowry with the bride. His matrimonial scheme in regard to a Spanish 
alliance is thus discussed by Justin McCarthy in his " History of Our Times." 

" In an evil hour for themselves and their fame, Louis Philippe and his 
minister believed that they could obtain a virtual ownership of Spain by an 
ingenious marriage scheme. There was at one time a project, talked of 
rather than actually entertained, of marrying the young queen of Spain and 
her sister to the Due d'Aumale and the Due de Montpensier, both sons of 
Louis Philippe. But this would have been too daring a venture on the part 
of the king of the French. Apart from any objections to be entertained by 
other States, it was certain that England could not " view with indifference," 
as the diplomatic phrase goes, the prospect of a son of the French king 
occupying the throne of Spain. It may be said that after all it was of little 
concern to England who married the queen of Spain. Spain was nothing to 
us. It would not foUow that Spain must be the tool of France because the 
Spanish queen married a son of the French king, any more than it was cer- 
tain in a former day that Austria must link herself with the fortunes of the 
great Napoleon because he had married an Austrian princess. Probably it 
would have been well if England had concerned herself in no wise with the 



328 FRANCE.— LOUIS PHILIPPE. [1830 

domestic affairs of Spain, and had allowed Louis Philippe to spin what igno- 
ble plots he pleased, if the Spanish people themselves had not wit enough to 
see through and power enough to counteract them. At a later period France 
brought on herself a terrible war and a crushing defeat because her emperor 
chose to believe, or allowed himself to be persuaded into believing, that the 
security of France would be threatened if a Prussian prince were called to 
the throne of Spain. The Prussian prince did not ascend that throne ; but 
the war between France and Prussia went on ; France was defeated ; and 
after a little the Spanish people themselves got rid of the prince whom they 
had consented to accept in place of the obnoxious Prussian. If the French 
emperor had not interfered, it is only too probable that the Prussian prince 
would have gone to Madrid, reigned there for a few unstable and tremulous 
months, and then have been quietly sent back to his own country. But at 
the time of Louis Philippe's intrigues about the Spanish marriages^ the states- 
men of England were by no means disposed to take a cool and philosophic 
view of things. The idea of non-intervention had scarcely come up then, 
and the English minister who was chiefly concerned in foreign affairs was 
about the last man in the world to admit that anything could go on in 
Europe or elsewhere in which England was not entitled to express an opinion, 
and to make her influence felt. The marriage, therefore, of the young queen 
of Spain had been long a subject of anxious consideration in the councils of 
the English government. Louis Philippe knew very well that he could not 
venture to marry one of his sons to the young Isabella. But he and his 
minister devised a scheme for securing to themselves and their policy the 
same effect in another way. They contrived that the queen and her sister 
should be married at the same time — the queen to her cousin, Don Francisco 
d'Assis, duke of Cadiz , and her sister to the Duke de Montpensier, Louis 
Philippe's son. There was reason to expect that the queen, if married to 
Don Francisco, would have no children, and that the wife of Louis Philippe's 
son, or some of her children, would come to the throne of Spain. 

" On the moral guilt of a plot like this it would be superfluous to dwell. 
Nothing in the history of the perversions of human conscience and judgment 
can be more extraordinary than the fact that a man like M. Guizot should 
have been its inriiiring influence. It came with a double shock upon the 
queen of England and her miinisters, because they had every reason to think 
that Louis Philippe had bound himself by a solemn promise to discourage 
any such policy. When the queen paid her visit to Louis Philippe at Eu, the 
king made the most distinct and spontaneous promises to her majesty and 
Lord Aberdeen. 

" The objection of England and other powers was from first to last an objec- 
tion to any arrangement which might leave the succession to one of Louis 
Philippe's children or grandchildren. For this reason the king had given his 
word to Queen Victoria that he would not hear of his son's marriagewith Isa- 
bella sister until the difficulty about the succession had been removed by Isa- 
bella's herself being married and having a child. Such an agreement was abso- 



1848] FRANCE.— LOUIS PHILIPPE. 329 

lutely broken when the king arranged for the marriage of his son to the sister 
of Queen Isabella at the same time as Isabella's own marriage, and when, there- 
fore, it was not certain that the young queen would have any children. The. 
political question, the question of succession, remained then open as before. 
All the objections that England and other powers had to the marriage 
of the Due de Montpensier stood out as strong as ever. It was the 
question of the birth of a child, and no child was born. The breach of faith 
was made infinitely more grave by the fact that in the public opinion of 
Europe, Louis Philippe was set down as having brought about the marriage 
of the queen of Spain with her cousin Don Francisco in the hope and belief 
that the union would be barren of issue, and that the wife of his son would 
stand on the next step of the throne. 

" The excuse which Louis Philippe put forward to palliate what he called 
his " deviation " from the promise to the queen was not of a nature calculated 
to allay the ill-feeling which his policy had aroused in England. Pie pleaded 
in substance that he had reason to believe in an intended piece of treachery 
on the part of the English government, the consequences of which, if it were 
successful, would have been injurious to his policy, and the discovery of which, 
therefore, released him from his promise. He had found out, as he declared, 
that there was an intention on the part of England to put forward, as a candi- 
date for the hand of Queen Isabella, Prince Leopold of Coburg, a cousin of 
Prince Albert. There was so little justification for any such suspicion that 
it seems hardly possible a man of Louis Philippe's shrewdness can really have 
entertained it. The English government had always steadfastly declined to 
give any support whatever to the candidature of this young prince. Lord 
Aberdeen, who was then foreign secretary, had always taken his stand on the 
broad principle that the marriage of the queen of Spain was the business of 
Isabella herself and of the Spanish people, and that so long as that queen and 
that people were satisfied, and the interests of England were in no wise in- 
ovlved, the government of Queen Victoria would interfere in no manner. The 
candidature of Prince Leopold had been in the first instance a project of the 
dowager queen of Spain, Christina, a woman of intriguijig character, on whose 
poHtical probity no great reliance could be placed. The English government 
had in the most decided and practical manner proved that they took no share 
in the plans of Queen Christina, and had no sympathy with them. But while 
the whole negotiations were going on the defeat of Sir Robert Peel's ministry 
brought Lord Palmerston into the foreign ofifice in place of Lord Aberdeen. 
The very name of Palmerston produced on Louis Philippe and his minister 
the effect vulgarly said to be wrought on a bull by the display of a red rag. 
Louis Philippe treasured in bitter memory the unexpected success which 
Palmerston had won from him in regard to Turkey and Egypt. At that time, 
and especially in the court of Louis Philippe, foreign politics were looked 
upon as the field in which the ministers of great powers contended against 
each other with brag and trickery and subtle arts of all kinds , the plain prin- 
ciples of integrity and truthful dealing did not seem to be regarded as prop- 



330 FRANCE.— LOUIS PHILIPPE. [1850 

erly belonging to the rules of the game. Louis Philippe probably believed 
in good faith that the return of Lord Palmerston to the foreign ofifice must 
mean the renewed activity of treacherous plans against himself. This at least 
is the only assumption on which we can explain the king's conduct, if we do 
not wish to believe that he put forward excuses and pretexts which were 
willful in their falsehood. Louis Philippe seized on some words in a dispatch 
of Lord Palmerston's, in which the candidature of Prince Leopold was simply 
mentioned as a matter of fact ; declared that these words showed that the 
English government had at last openly adopted that candidature, professed 
himself relieved from all previous engagements, and at once hurried on the 
marriage between Queen Isabella and her cousin, and that of his own son with 
Isabella's sister. On October loth, 1846, the double marriage took place at 
Madrid ; and on February 5th following, M. Guizot told the French chambers 
that the Spanish marriages constituted the first great thing France had 
accomplished completely single-handed in Europe since 1830. 

Every one knows what a failure this scheme proved, so far as the objects 
of Louis Philippe and his minister were concerned. Queen Isabella had 
children. Montpensier's wife did not come to the throne ; and the dynasty 
of Louis Philippe fell before long, its fall undoubtedly hastened by the posi- 
tion of utter isolation and distrust in which it was placed by the scheme of 
the Spanish marriages and the feelings which it provoked in Europe. The 
fact with which we have to deal, however, is that the friendship between 
England and France, from which so many happy results seemed likely to 
come to Europe and the cause of free government, was necessarily interrupted. 
It would have been impossible to trust any longer to Louis Phihppe." 



XXY. 



THE MOLDTION OF 1818. 




HE overthrow of 1848 was approaching. It is not 
compatible with the hmits of our work to enter into any 
minute detail of the revolution of February. The leg- 
islative session had opened on the 28th of December. 
1847. The king's speech contained an allusion to the 
agitation for "electoral and parliamentary reform," — 
which words had become a toast at several provincial 
banquets. Petitions for reform had been presented to the 
chamber of deputies. On the opening of the session there 
had been discussions in the chamber on the legality of peaceful 
and unarmed political meetings. On the 22d of February there 
was to have been a reform banquet in the twelfth arro7idissenient 
j>r- of Paris — a quarter where the materials for disorder were abun- 
li^ dant. The minister of the interior forbade the meeting, as the 
committee for the banquet had proposed a procession of 
National Guards in uniform, and of students. The uniform of 
'g) the National Guards had almost disappeared from public view. 
They were no longer favored and flattered by the government. The principal 
leaders of the parliamentary opposition now announced that the banquet 
was adjourned, in consequence of the declaration of the minister of the 
interior. The postponement was loudly murmured at by the democratic 
journalists. On the morning of the 22d the streets were crowded at an early 
hour. About noon a crowd surrounded the chamber of deputies ; and a cry 
was raised of " Down with Guizot ; " but in the evening the city was quiet. 
Not so during the night. The government was collecting troops, and the 
people were raising barricades. The rappcl was again heard calling out the 
National Guard at seven in the morning of the 23d. Some firing soon took 
place between the populace and the Municipal Guards. But the National 
Guards had come to an agreement among themselves to act the part of 
conciliators rather than that of the opposers of the people ; and their 
presence in consequence prevented any attempt of the regular troops to 
disperse the multitudes assembled in various quarters. Soon the cry of 
Vive la R^forme was heard among groups of the citizen soldiers. The royal 
occupants of the Tuileries began to be seriously alarmed. A council was 
hastily summoned, when M. Guizot, finding that the cabinet could not rely 
upon the firmness of the king, expressed his determination to retire. He 



332 FRANCE.— THE REVOLUTION OF 1848. [1848 

himself announced his resignation to the chamber of deputies. There was 
joy that night in Paris, for it was thought that the cause of reform had 
gained a victory. Houses were illuminated as if the crisis were passed. But 
a band of republicans bearing a red flag had come forth, and gathering 
together before the Hotel of Foreign Affairs occupied by M. Guizot, where a 
battalion of infantry was stationed, a shot fired from the mob was answered 
by a volley from the soldiery, and fifty fell, killed or wounded. A procession 
was immediately formed. The bodies of the dead were carried by torchlight 
through the streets, amid the frantic cries of excited crowds demanding 
vengeance. The opportunity of restoring tranquillity by the exercise of 
force had passed away. During the night the king had reluctantly decided 
for concession. He had sent for M. Thiers and offered him the formation of 
a ministry. As the condition of his acceptance M. Thiers stipulated that 
M. Odillon Barrot should be a member of the cabinet. This was entirely to 
yield upon the question of reform, and wholly to change the policy of the 
government. But there was no alternative for the perplexed king. The 
change of administration was announced by placards in the morning. The 
command of the troops had been given to Marshal Bugeaud during the 
night ; and it is probable that he would have adopted no half measures to 
support the crown. His command was superseded by the new ministers, who 
judged that the danger of insurrection Was passed. They were deceived. 
About noon the populace attacked the Palais Royal, and sacked the apart- 
ments. The Tuileries was next to be assailed. The king left the palace with 
his queen. The mob broke in. The throne was carried along the Boulevards, 
and was burnt at the foot of the column of July. 

The chamber of deputies met at half-past twelve, when M. Dupin 
announced the abdication of Louis Philippe. M. Dupin also announced that 
the king had abdicated in favor of his grandson, the Comte de Paris, 
appointing the duchess of Orleans regent. The duchess, leading her two 
sons by the hand, entered the chamber, accompanied by the Duke de 
Nemours. She said, " I have come here with all I have dear in the world." 
Some repugnance was manifested at the presence of royal strangers, but the 
duchess appearing unwilling to retire, a stormy discussion began. By a law 
of 1842 it was declared that during the minority of the Comte de Paris, in 
the event of the demise of the king, the Duke de Nemours should be regent. 
The debate turned upon this difficulty. It was soon interrupted by the rush 
of a crowd that filled all the passages of the chambers and swarmed into the 
hall. The mother and her children were surrounded by armed men ; but 
still she resolved to remain. She heard the demand for a provisional govern- 
ment ; she heard the assertion that a regency could not be created. Amid 
clamors and threats she was forced by her attendants out of the hall. The 
deputies were scarcely free agents, as, with the applauses or the hisses of the 
fierce republicans who were now in command of the situation, the members 
of a provisional government were nominated. Seven deputies were finally 
appointed to this responsibility. In the mean time another provisional 



i852] FRANCE.— THE REVOLUTION OF 1848. 333 

government had been formed at the Hotel de Ville. The members chosen 
by the chamber were Lamartine, Marie, Ledru-Rolhn, Cremieux, Dupont de 
I'Eure, Arago, and Gamier Pages. The provisional government of the 
Hotel de Ville consisted of Marrast, Flocon, Louis Blanc and Albert. The 
seven proceeded to the Hotel de Ville, and there, after violent altercation, 
came to a compromise with the four. Liberty and Equality shook hands. 
There was to be a republic; but a republic in which the principles of 
socialism should be the paramount element. At the top of the stairs of the 
Hotel de Ville, Lamartine proclaimed the republic to the populace below. 
The provisional government of eleven declared that the chamber of deputies 
was dissolved ; that a national assembly should be convoked, the members 
•of the "ex-chamber of peers" being forbidden to assemble. On the 25th 
''a proclamation," signed by Gamier Pages and Louis Blanc, declared that 
the provisional government undertook to secure the existence of the work- 
man by labor ; to guarantee labor to all citizens. On the 26th the members 
presented themselves to the people assembled before the Hotel de Ville ; 
and there Lamartine proclaimed the abolition of royalty and the establish- 
ment of the republic, with the exercise of their pohtical right by the people. 
■The prospect of universal suffrage was made still more agreeable by the 
announcement of the opening of national workshops for the unemployed 
workmen. 

The peace of Europe then occupied the attention of the provisional 
government, and measures were taken to provide a more permanent govern- 
ment. A national assembly was elected on the 27th of April, and on the 4th 
of May it met at Paris. The provisional government now ended its existence, 
and instead there was an executive commission chosen by the assembly as the 
visible governing power. On this commission Lamartine was placed. But his 
popularity was already on the wane. The 13th of June Louis Napoleon was 
elected a member of the assembly from three departments of the Seine. The 
insurrections of the red republicans broke out on the 22d of June. The 
immediate cause of this was the disbanding of the national workshops. The 
large number of idle operatives were too much for the government to bear. 
The workmen saw their political and social hopes vanishing, and they were in 
open revolt to overthrow the new government. But the assembly was now 
prepared for battle. The army was brought up and placed in command of 
General Cavaignac, an ofificer of great boldness and experience, and moreover 
a very ardent but practical republican. The insurgents fortified themselves 
in the quarter where they resided, and for awhile resisted with success all 
efforts to dislodge them. 

The streets of Paris ran with blood for three days, and fully one half of this 
time the issue was uncertain. But in the end the army of the assembly w^as 
victorious, and its authority maintained at the loss of from three thousand to 
five thousand lives. 

The popularity of Lamartine before on the wane was now entirely obscured, 
and his statesmanship despised. The opposition to him was so decided that 



334 FRANCE.— THE REVOLUTION OF 1848. [184& 

he and his associates resigned, and General Cavaignac was virtually dictator. 
Relieved from the fear of an insurrection, the assembly changed the 
constitution again. Under this there was a single representative body and 
a president for four years. This went into force in December, 1848, and 
Louis Napoleon was elected president, taking the oath of office on the 20th of 
that month. The new president proved himself strongly conservative, and 
went so far as to send an army to aid the pope against the republicans of 
Italy. This revolution against the pope was put down in 1849, ^^^ Rome 
was left in the hands of the French troops. There were frequent quarrels, 
between the president of France and the legislature, the latter being 
convinced that Louis Napoleon had his eye not so much on the good of the 
republic as on his own. The deposed king, Louis Philippe, died in England 
on the 26th of August, 1850. 

In the mean while, Louis Napoleon was gradually drawing the lines of 
absolute power about the press and all the liberty of the people. In the 
midst of the anarchy he held steadfast to his purpose, and at last put an end 
to it by the famous or infamous — from whichever standpoint you regard it — 
coup d'etai on December 2d, 185 1. The principal actors in this drama were 
Louis Napoleon, M. de Morny, M. de Maupas and General St. Arnaud. The 
circumstances attending it were necessarily atrocious and violent. Prepara- 
tions were made for destroying all authority but his own. The ministers 
were compelled to resign, and he made an appeal to the people stating his 
desire to be elected to the presidency for ten years. Very many arrests were 
made, and troops were placed in readiness. On the 4th of December blood- 
shed was commenced. The boulevards were swept by troops, artillery was 
placed in position, and wherever a group of people was seen they were fired 
upon, and the soldiers having been ordered to show no quarter, so in two 
or three days all was quiet, and the election came on. Napoleon was elected 
president for ten years by a vote of seven millions. In just one year the 
republic was transformed into an empire, and Napoleon assumed the title of 
Napoleon III. He shortly after married the Mile, de Montig, countess 
of Teba, who bore him a son March 14th, 1856. 

Mr. Justin McCarthy, in his " History of Our Times," thus describes the 
state of feeling in England at this time : 

" All the earlier part of the year had witnessed the steady progress of 
the prince president of France to an imperial throne. The previous year 
had closed upon his coup d'etat. He had arrested, imprisoned, banished or 
shot his principal enemies, and had demanded from the French people a 
presidency for ten years, a ministry responsible to the executive power — 
himself alone — and two political chambers to be elected by universal suffrage. 
Nearly five hundred prisoners, untried before any tribunal, even that of a 
drum-head, had been shipped off to Cayenne. The streets of Paris had been 
soaked in blood. The president instituted d. plebiscite, or vote of the whole 
people, and of course he got all he asked for. There was no arguing with the 
commander of twenty legions, and of such legions as those that had operated 



1852] FRANCE.— THE REVOLUTION OF 184S. 335 

with terrible efficiency on the Boulevards. The first day of the new year 
saw the religious ceremony at Notre Dame to celebrate the acceptance of 
the ten years' presidency by Louis Napoleon. The same day a decree was 
published in the name of the president declaring that the French eagle should 
be restored to the standards of the army, as a symbol of the regenerated 
military genius of France. A few days after, the prince president decreed 
the confiscation of the property of the Orleans family and restored titles of 
nobility in France. The birthday of the Emperor Napoleon was declared by 
decree to be the only national holiday. When the two legislative bodies 
came to be sworn in, the president made an announcement which certainly 
did not surprise many persons, but which nevertheless sent a thrill abroad 
over all parts of Europe. If hostile parties continued to plot against him, 
the president intimated, and to question the legitimacy of the power he had 
assumed by virtue of the national vote, then it might be nece'ssary to 
demand from the people, in the name of the repose of France, ' a new title 
which will irrevocably fix upon my head the power with which they have 
invested me.' There could be no further doubt. The Bonapartist empire 
was to be restored. A new Napoleon was to come to the throne. 

" ' Only the devil knows what he means,' indeed. So people were all 
saying throughout England in 1852. The scheme went on to its develop- 
ment, and before the year was quite out Louis Napoleon was proclaimed 
emperor of the French. Men had noticed as a curious, not to say ominous, 
coincidence that on the very day when the duke of Wellington died the 
Moniteur announced that the French people were receiving the prince 
president everywhere as the emperor-elect and as the elect of God ; and 
another French journal published an article hinting not obscurely at the 
invasion and conquest of England as the first great duty of a new Napoleonic 
empire. The prince president indeed, in one of the provincial speeches 
which he delivered just before he was proclaimed emperor, had talked 
earnestly of peace. In his famous speech to the Chamber of Commerce of 
Bordeaux on October 9th, he denied that the restored empire would mean 
war. ' I say,* he declared, raising his voice and speaking with energy and 
emphasis, * the empire is peace.' But the assurance did not do much to 
satisfy Europe. Had not the sarhe voice, it was asked, declaimed with equal 
energy and earnestness the terms of the oath to the republican constitution ? 
Never, said a bitter enemy of the new empire, believe the word of a 
Bonaparte, unless when he promises to kill somebody. Such was indeed the 
common sentiment of a large number of the English people during the 
eventful year when the president' became emperor, and Prince Louis Napoleon 
was Napoleon the third. 

" It would have been impossible that the English people could view all 
this without emotion and alarm. But they could not see with indifference 
the rise of a new Napoleon to power on the strength of the old Napoleonic 
legend. The one special characteristic of the Napoleonic principle was its 
hostility to England. The life of the Great Napoleon in its greatest days had 



Sz€ FRANCE.— THE REVOLUTION OF 1848. [1848 

been devoted to the one purpose of humiliating England. His plans had been 
foiled by England. Whatever hands may have joined in pressing him to the 
ground, there could be no doubt that he owed his fall principally to England. 
He died a prisoner of England, and with his hatred of her embittered rather 
than appeased. It did not seem unreasonable to believe that the successor who 
had been enabled to mount the imperial throne simply because he bore the 
name and represented the principles of the first Napoleon would inherit the 
hatred to England and the designs against England. Everything else that 
savored of the Napoleonic era had been revived ; why should this, its 
principal characteristic, be allowed to lie in the tomb of the first emperor ? 
The policy of the first Napoleon had lighted up a fire of hatred between 
England and France which at one time seemed inextinguishable. There were 
many who regarded that international hate as something like that of the 
hostile brothers in the classic story, the very flames of whose funeral piles 
refused to mingle in the air ; or like that of the rival Scottish families, whose 
blood, it was said, would never commingle though poured into one dish. It 
did not seem possible that a new emperor Napoleon could arise without 
bringing a restoration of that hatred along with him. 

" When the C021J' d'etat came and was successful, the amazement of the 
English public was unbounded. Never had any plot been more skillfully and 
more carefully planned, more daringly carried out. Here evidently was a 
master in the art of conspiracy. Here was the combination of steady 
caution and boundless audacity. What a subtlety of design ; what a perfec- 
tion of silent self-control ! How slowly the plan had been matured ; how 
suddenly it was flashed upon the world and carried to success. No haste, no 
delay, no scruple, no remorse, no fear ! And all this was the work of the 
dull dawdler of English drawing-rooms, the heavy, apathetic, unmoral rather 
than immoral haunter of English race-courses and gambling-houses ! What 
new surprise might not be feared, what subtle and daring enterprise might 
not reasonably be expected from one who could thus conceal and thus reveal 
himself, and do both with a like success ! 

" Louis Napoleon, said a member of his family, deceived Europe twice : 
first when he succeeded in passing off as an idiot, and. next when he 
succeeded in passing off as a statesman. The epigram had doubtless a great 
deal of truth in it. The coup d'etat was probably neither planned nor 
carried to success by the cleverness and energy of Louis Napoleon. Cooler 
and stronger heads and hands are responsible for the execution at least of 
that enterprise. The prince, it is likely, played little more than a passive 
part in it, and might have lost his nerve more than once but for the greater 
resolution of some of his associates, who were determined to crown him for 
their own sakes as well as for his. But at the time the world at large saw 
only Louis Napoleon in the whole scheme, conception, execution, and ah. 
The idea was formed of a colossal figure of cunning and daring — a Brutus, a 
Talleyrand, a Philip of Spain, and a Napoleon the first all in one. Those 
who detested him most admired and feared him not the least. Who can 



1852] 



FRANCE.— THE SECOND EMPIRE. 



337 



doubt, it was asked, that he will endeavor to make himself the heir of the 
revenges of Napoleon? Who can believe any pledges he may give. How 
enter into any treaty or bond of any kind with such a man ? Where is the 
one that can pretend to say he sees through hjm and understands his 
schemes ? 

"There were five projects with which public opinion all over Europe 
specially credited Louis Napoleon when he began his imperial reign. One 
was a war with Russia. Another was a war with Austria. A third was a 
war with Prussia. A fourth was the annexation of Belgium. The fifth was 
the invasion of England. Three of these projects were carried out. The 
fourth we know was in contemplation. Our combination with France in the 
first probably put all serious thought of the fifth out of the head of the 
French emperor. He got far more prestige out of an alliance with us than 
he could ever have got out of any quarrel with us ; and he had little or no 
risk. We do not count for anything the repeated assurances of Louis 
Napoleon that he desired peace with England. A change in circumstances 
at any time might have induced an altered frame of mind. The very same 
assurances were made again and again to Russia, to Austria, and to Prussia. 
The pledge that the empire was peace was addressed, like the pope's edict, 
urbiet orbi^ 

xxYin. 




APOLEON HL made his government an absolutism 
under which France made rapid advances in material 
strength and prosperity. The city of Paris was em- 
bellished and fortified as never before. The emperor 
steadily maintained his policy and announced himself 
as the adjuster of the wrongs of nations. 
The Crimean war began in 1853. The French and Russian 
governments had taken sides in the controversy between the 
Greek and Latin, or Roman Catholic, churches, in regard to 
the occupancy of the sacred places around Jerusalem and 
vicinity. The czar sent Prince Menshikoff as envoy extra- 
ordinary to Constantinople, February 22d, 1853. He also made 
certain demands respecting the protection of Christians in 
Turkey. In regard to the first of these questions the sultan 
referred it to a mixed commission, but refused to entertain the 
second. Two weeks later, after the envoy was recalled, the 
sultan acceded to all the demands of the czar and appealed to 
his allies. In June the French and English fleets appeared on the scene. 
About the middle of September, 1853, four of this fleet passed the Darda- 
22 



338 FRANCE.— THE SECOND EMPIRE. [1852 

nelles, and on the 5th of October the sultan declared war agahist Russia, 
and struck the first blow. Now the Russian czar declared war, and then 
followed a series of battles in and around the Crimea which lasted for twenty- 
six months. The chief of them followed in this order : Alma, September 
20th, 1854, the English under Lord Raglan and the French under Marshal St. 
Arnaud routed the Russians; September 25th, the allies took Balaklava; 
October 17th they began an unsuccessful siege of Sevastopol. The 
battle of Balaklava, in which was made the famous charge of the Light 
Brigade, was fought on October 25th. On the 8th day of September, 1855, 
the French carried Malakoff by storm, and the Russians, sinking their fleet 
in the mouth of the harbor, left Sevastopol. There was but little fighting 
after this, and peace was concluded March 30th, 1856, and the allies left the 
Crimea on the 9th of July. The French lost about sixty-three thousand five 
hundred men ; the English, twenty-six thousand eight hundred and seventy- 
three from killed and wounded.* 

In April, 1855, the emperor and empress of France visited Queen Victo- 
ria at Windsor castle, and were sumptuously entertained by the queen and her 
royal consort. Prince Albert returned the visit in August of the same 
year. The Industrial Exhibition was opened at Paris, May 15th, 1855, and 
far surpassed the World's Fair in Hyde Park. An attempt was made on the 
life of the emperor on the 28th of April by Pianori, and another by Bellemarre 
on the 8th of September, the same year. The birth of the prince imperial, 
March i6th, 1856, has been already noticed. There was nothing of public 
interest after the close of the Crimean war. In the early part of the year 
1857 the archbishop of Paris, Sibour, was assassinated by a parish priest 
named Verger. A conspiracy against the life of the emperor was discovered 
July nth, 1857, and, later in the year, he and the Empress Eugenie again 
visited England. The brave General Cavaignac, who had steadily refused to 
give his adherence to the emperor, was still permitted to reside in France 
without molestation. He died very suddenly at his country seat near Tours, 
October 28th, 1857. Unlike most of his countrymen he was calm, sober and 
moderate in debate, but of firm principle and unimpeached morality. Louis 
Napoleon and the Russian emperor, Alexander II., had an interview at Stutt- 
gart, September 25th. 

Another attempt upon the emperor's life was made in Paris, on the 14th 
of January, 1858, by a man named Orsini, who, with his accomplices, threw 
three shells at the emperor and the empress. One hundred and fifty persons 
were killed and wounded by the explosion, but the emperor escaped unharmed. 
The assassm Orsini was traced by the blood from the wound inflicted by his 
own bomb. This is fully discussed in the History of England. In this same 
year the empn-e was divided into five military departments. A republican 
outbreak at Chalons was suppressed with much violence. The queen of 
England and consort return the visit of the emperor. 

On the first day of January, 1859, Louis Napoleon announced his inten- 
*A full account of this war will be found in the History of England. 



i870] FRANCE.— THE SECOND EMPIRE. 339 

tion of aiding the Italian cause, under Victor Emanuel. In the early part of 
this year Victor Emanuel proclaimed his intention of aiding to free the popu- 
lace of Italy from the Austrian yoke. Sardinia and France united in a war 
against Austria, and in April, 1859, the war commenced. The victories of 
Magenta and Solferino were quickly followed by the inconclusive treaty of 
Villafranca, July nth, by which a confederation of all the Italian States was 
formed under the protectorate of the pope. All Italy indignantly rejected 
this, and early in i860 the various States declared in favor of annexation to the 
kingdom of Piedmont. March i8th, Parma, Modenaand the Emilean provinces 
were incorporated with Sardinia, and the grand duchy of Tuscany followed on 
the 22d. Victor Emanuel was proclaimed king of Italy, March 7th. Nice and 
Savoy were ceded to France on the 24th. Garibaldi, with a thousand volun- 
teers, led a successful and bloodless revolution in the Sicilies. He then liber- 
ated the whole southern part of the peninsula and presented it to Victor 
Emanuel, who entered Naples November 7th. The French emperor had 
taken the field himself, and arrived at Genoa May 12th. The Italians sus- 
pected the French influence in the cabinet, and were present at the subse- 
quent battles. The Empress Eugenie was left as regent in France. The 
Emperor Napoleon and the emperor of Austria met at Villafranca July nth, 
and Napoleon returned to France the 17th. A treaty Avas signed between 
Austria, France and Sardinia on the 12th of November, 1859. 

In i860 the principal public events are hastily given as follows : January 
23d, the emperor adopts a free trade policy with England. The annexation 
of Nice and Savoy has been mentioned. The Emperor Napoleon meets 
the German sovereign at Baden-Baden, June 1 5-1 7th. The emperor and 
empress visit Savoy, Corsica and Algiers in the summer. The new tariff goes 
into operation on October ist. The collection of Peter's pence is prohibited, 
and the issuing of pastoral letters very much restricted. The freedom of the 
press is partially restored, and many important ministerial changes are made, 
and finally the emperor advises the pope to give up his temporal possessions. 
In the year 1861 France purchases the principality of Monaco for four million 
francs. There followed trouble with the Roman Church, and the French 
government issues a circular forbidding Romish priests from interfering with 
secular politics, April nth. A commercial treaty is made with Belgium. 
The French government declares neutrality in the American civil war. The 
kingdom of Italy is recognized June 24th. The French emperor and king of 
Prussia meet at Compiegne October 6th. The finances of France were in a 
fearful condition, and Achille Fould, who had been removed in December^ 
i860, was recalled to be minister of finance ; his great ability and system 
enabling him to extricate matters. In the latter part of 1861 there was a 
convention entered into between France, Spain and England, in regard to the 
government of Mexico. Using the pretext of the disordered state of matters 
in that country they ventured, in defiance of the avowed policy of the 
United States, when that country was in the midst of a gigantic civil war, to 
set up a monarchy on the southern border of that republic. The expedition 



340 



FRANCE.— THE SECOND EMPIRE. [1852 



was begun in 1861, and a fleet of French, Spanish and EngHsh ships of war- 
entered the gulf of Mexico. In December the British minister left Mexico, 
and the Spanish landed at Vera Cruz, and took possession before the arrival 
of the allied fleet. The three commanders of the alHed fleet issued a 
proclamation to the people, but received no response; then they began 
to advance on the capital. The provisional government asked for an 
armistice, pending negotiations for a treaty. The treaty was accepted by 
Spain and England, but not by France. The French troops remained in 
possession of the country. War was declared against the government of 
Juarez, but the Mexicans did not take well to the French occupation. The 
French captured several important places and entered the city of Mexico on 
June loth, 1862. A provisional government was formed, and an " assembly 
of notables " was called June 24th, to form the best kind of a government. 
They decided that a limited monarchy with a Catholic sovereign was the best, 
and resolved to offer the crown to the archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of 
Austria. The Mexicans can not have had much real spirit in this if we may 
judge of it in the light of subsequent events. Maximilian accepted the 
crown offered to him and came to Mexico in May, 1864. He entered his 
capital June I2th. The Imperialist army of France had gained possession of 
every State, and Juarez had fled to the United States before the summer was- 
gone. There were still small bands of republicans left in the country, which 
kept up a guerilla warfare. Maximilian issued a proclamation on the 25th of 
October, 1865, menacing all who were found in arms with death. In accord- 
ance with this two generals were afterward shot. The French emperor 
became weary of this expensive and although successful yet unprofitable 
expedition, and he gradually withdrew his troops and left Maximilian to his 
fate. In February, 1867, the last French troops were removed, and at once 
Juarez returned and resumed the government of the republic. Maximilian, 
at the head of a few troops of his own remaining in the country, was over- 
come, captured and shot by the Mexicans. His poor wife, Charlotte, became 
insane from grief. And thus Napoleon's scheme fell through. 

To return to the year 1862. The French conquered the province of 
Bienhoa in Anam, and six provinces in Cochin China. These have been 
ceded to France by treaty. A new commercial treaty was formed with 
Prussia August 2d. There was much suffering in the manufacturing dis- 
tricts of Southern France on account of the scarcity of cotton, owing to the 
civil war in America. 

In 1863 we notice th'ese events : Commercial treaty with Italy. Revolt 
in Anam crushed. The Spanish frontier was established by treaty. The 
emperor proposes a conference of the European powers on the questions of 
the day, November 9th, but England refuses to join, November 25th. There 
is a growing opposition to the government all the while, and many liberal 
members are elected to the legislature. 

In 1864 we record a treaty with Japan; a commercial treaty with Switzer- 
land ; a convention with Italy in regard to the evacuation of Rome. The 



iS/o] FRANCE.— THE SECOND EMPIRE. 341 

Mexican empire was established with Maximihan of Austria as its head. In 
the year 1865 a treaty was made with Sweden, the emperor Louis Napoleon 
made a visit to Algeria, and the British fleet came upon a friendly visit to 
Cl^rbourg and Brest. A return visit was made by the French fleet to Ports- 
mouth, and the Spanish queen visited the emperor at Biarritz. An extensive 
feeling of alarm was produced in Europe in 1866, by the declaration of Louis 
Napoleon that he detested the treaties of 181 5. He then proposed a peace 
conference with England and Russia, aiming at a settlement of the difficulties 
between Austria and Italy, but Russia refused to join it. France declares a 
watchful neutrality as to the German-Italian war. The Emperor Napoleon 
demanded of Prussia a cession of a part of the Rhine provinces, and was 
refused in August. Austria cedes Venetia to France, who transfers it to 
Italy. The French occupation of Rome terminated December nth. 

The great exposition of Paris was opened April ist, 1867, and consisted 
of the industrial arts of all nations. Many foreign visitors were present, and 
the awards were distributed by the emperor. By a treaty adopted at 
London, 1867, the fortress at Luxemburg was demolished and the Prussian 
troops were removed. Extensive riots broke out in Bordeaux and Paris 
during the months of March and June, 1868, but they were quickly 
suppressed. In the year of 1869 the elections resulted in returning a large 
number of radical members. Louis Napoleon granted to his people several 
concessions, but the great national event of the year was the one hundredth 
anniversary of the birth of Napoleon Bonaparte, which was celebrated in 
great splendor in all parts of the empire August 15th. 

The result of an appeal to the French nation in a plebiscitum, May 8th 
was not altogether satisfactory to the emperor, and the presence of fifty 
thousand dissenting votes in the army was especially indicative of danger. 
The emperor saw at once that he must find some great foreign question to 
unite the people or he would hold his power upon them by £i very slight 
tenure. The Franco-Prussian war was therefore inaugurated, and an easy 
pretext was found. The French had ill-brooked the growing German power, 
and had not forgotten the former defeats at her hands. Napoleon therefore 
rushed rashly into a war for which, he ivas not prepared, to find that his 
antagonist was fully ready to cope with him and choose his own ground. 
The long threatened rupture came in 1870. On the 4th of July of that year 
the provisional government of Spain had elected Prince Leopold of Hohenzol- 
lern, a relation of William of Prussia, to fill the vacant throne. The French 
press claimed to see in this that they were threatened with a re-establishment 
of the empire of Charles V. in favor of Prussia. Leopold resigned ; but this 
did not satisfy the French, and the government demanded an assurance that 
Prussia should at no future time sanction his claims. King William refused 
to give this assurance, and France declared war. Contrary to general expec- 
tation, the southern German States united with Prussia and the northern 
States, and placed their armies at the disposal of Prussia. 

At once the two armies began to gather. Napoleon lost two weeks of 



342 



FRANCE.— THE SECOND EMPIRE. 



[1870 



August in delays after the declaration of war. His army was not so 
thoroughly organized as he thought, and so instead of marching on to Berlin 
lie never crossed the Rhine. August 2d the French gained some trifling 
success at Saarback, but a brilliant victory of the crown prince of Prussia at 
Weisenburg on the 4th was followed by another victory of Werth over the 
French two days later, in which MacMahon lost four thousand prisoners 
and was driven toward Metz. Another French force was defeated on the 
same day at Specheren and lost twenty-five hundred prisoners. The 
Prussians occupied Nancy on the 14th, and on the i6th the French, under 
Bazaine, were driven back on Mars-la-Tour. The king of Prussia commanded 
in person at the battle of Gravelotte on the i8th, and although the German 
army suffered very heavily it was finally victorious, and Bazaine was shut up 
in Mentz. In three days the French had lost, in killed alone, twelve thousand 
men. Napoleon and Marshal MacMahon in vain attempted to come to the 
relief of Bazaine. They were surrounded and defeated at Sedan with 
heavy loss. The emperor surrendered with his whole army of about ninety 
thousand men, and was sent a prisoner to Germany September 2d. The 
Prussian army reached Paris on the 19th, and began a vigorous siege. After a 
severe bombardment, Strasburg surrendered on the 27th. The next day 
Bazaine surrendered the city of Metz with his army of six thousand ofificers 
and one hundred and seventy-three thousand men, four hundred pieces of 
artillery, one hundred mitrailleuses, and sixty eagles. Verdun capitulated on 
November 8th, Thornville on the 24th, and several other places of lesser 
importance followed. 

From these triumphs and reverses of military heroes we turn to one who has 
only achieved the victories of peace and gladly give him a place of mention. 

Ferdinand de Lesseps was born at 
Versailles in 1805, the son of Baron de 
Lesseps. When twenty years old he was 
appointed attache' to the French consulate 
in Lisbon. His commission to negotiate 
for the construction of the Suez Canal was 
given in 1854, but not until 1856 was the 
Compagnie International formed for this 
purpose. The years between them and 
1864 were spent in collecting money for 
his great project, and in the overcoming 
of other dif^culties than the financial one ; 
but in July, 1864, the final and favorable 
decision of Napoleon III. was gained and 
work on the canal fairly begun. It was 
opened in 1869, the year witnessing the 
FERDINAND DE LESSEPS. Completion of perhaps the greatest piece 

of engineering of modern times, and the highest triumph of the indefatigable 
man who had constructed it. 




XXVIII. 



THE NEW EEPUBLIC. 




fHE provisional government of France made great efforts 

to raise armies and relieve Paris, but with the exception 

of a little success on the Loire they met with nothing 

but defeat. In the battles in the forest of Orleans and 

that of Le Muns January 12th, the Prussians took 

thirty thousand prisoners. Finally Paris surrendered on 

January 29th. The French army of the east, eighty 

thousand strong, was obliged to retire to Switzerland on the 

31st. The peace was declared, but France was compelled to 

pay an indemnity awarding $1,000,000,000, and cede the 

province of Alsace and the German part of Lorraine to 

Prussia. One great result of the war was the confederation of 

the German States and the elevation of King William to be 

'I emperor of Germany. 

In January, 1871, the united efforts of the " provisional 
government of defense," respectively installed at Paris and 
Tours, brought about an armistice after Paris had been invested 
four months. The French nation now proceeded to a general election of 
representatives to provide for the exigencies of the case. The first assembly 
met at Bordeaux in February. They secured the resignation of the pro- 
visional government and began at once to form a republic. M. Thiers was 
nominated chief of the executive power of the State with the title of 
president. The responsibility rested with the assembly. The enormous war 
indemnity was finally liquidated in September, 1873, and then the last 
remnant of foreign troops was removed from the soil of France. 

In the spring of 1871 the peace of Paris was seriously threatened by a suc- 
cessful outbreak of the communists, and a great amount of bloodshed and 
grievous damage was done to public and private property. But this insurrec- 
tion was put down by the regular army, which had taken the side of the gov- 
ernment, and May 20th order was completely restored in Paris. France at 
once began to recuperate, and gradually the disasters of the war were obliter- 
ated. Commerce, manufactures and agriculture revived, and an era of national 
prosperity set in. The ex-emperor died at Chiselhurst, England, in March, 
1872. 

On the 24th day of May, 1873, M. Thiers resigned his office, and Marshal 
MacMahon was elected in his stead. The new president soon after had the 



344 FRANCE.— THE NEW REPUBLIC. [iS/r 

power conferred on him for seven years. His sympathies were conservative^ 
and in 1877 he was suspected of revolutionary designs. But during his term 
of office the repubhcan form of government was greatly consolidated, and 
secured more and more the confidence of the nation and the world. In 1875, 
the legislative body was reorganized and two chambers were appointed. The 
same year a charter was granted for the construction of a tunnel under the 
Channel. The legislature of two chambers began its session March 7th, 1876. 
M. Thiers died September 3d, 1877. There was an extensive international 
exposition in Paris in 1878 which was very successful. In January, 1879, Mar- 
shal MacMahon resigned the presidency of the republic, and was succeeded 
by M. Grevy, a thoroughgoing but not extreme republican : he had never 
been a blind partisan, and consequently enjoyed the respect and confidence 
of the nation. 

He was born at Vandrez in the Jura August 15th, 1813 ; he adopted the 
profession of law and became an advocate in Paris. He was engaged in the- 
revolution of 1830 and in 1848 was a member of the constituent assembly. 
In 1852 he retired from politics and resumed the practice of law, but returned, 
to the political arena in 1868. 

The prince imperial, Eugene Louis Jean Joseph, son of Louis Napoleon, 
escaped from Sedan at the time of his father's capture and went to England. 
When the Zulu war broke out in 1879 he volunteered to go to South Africa, 
and was shot there while with a reconnoitering party, by a band of Zulus in. 
ambush, in July of that year. 

This melancholy incident made the war memorable, not only to England, 
but to Europe. The young French prince, Louis Napoleon, who had studied 
in English military schools, felt a strong desire to vary the somewhat 
mournful monotony of his life by taking part in the campaign. He was- 
influenced in some measure by a desire to fight under the English flag ; but 
it must be owned that he was influenced much more strongly by a wish to- 
play to a French popular audience. He persuaded himself that it would 
greatly increase his chances of recovering the throne of France if he could 
exhibit himself to the eyes of the French public as a bold and brilliant young 
soldier. ^ He therefore seized the opportunity of the Zulu campaign to offer 
his services, and attach himself as a volunteer to Lord Chelmsford's staff. 
During one of the episodes of the war he and some of his companions were 
surprised by a body of Zulus. Others escaped, but Prince Louis Napoleon 
Avas killed. The news of his death created a great shock in England. Every 
one was sorry for the young gallant life so uselessly thrown away. Still 
more deep was the regret felt for the position of the bereaved mother. 
Hardly has any history a tale more tragic than hers. So sudden and splendid 
an elevation, so brilliant a career, so complete a fall, such an accumulation of 
sorrow, is hardly equaled even in the story of Marie Antoinette. Now, in 
the autumn of her life, she was left absolutely alone. Youth, beauty, 
imperial throne, husband, son, all were gone. It was natural that considera- 
tions such as these should throw a halo of melancholy romance round the fate 



1884] FRANCE.— THE NEW REPUBLIC. 345 

of the young prince, Louis Napoleon, and should rouse in that country an 
amount of sympathy which harsher critics condemned as sentimental, and 
even as maudlin. It must be admitted that the poor young prince fell in a 
quarrel which was not his, in which he had neither right nor duty to interfere, 
and which he had taken on himself with a purely personal and political 
motive. Princes in exile have many times borne arms in quarrels not their 
own. It is one of the privileges and one of the consolations of exile thus to 
be enabled to lend a helping hand to a foreign cause. But then the cause 
must be great and just ; it must have some noble principle to inspire it. 
When the Orleanist princes fought under the flag of the United States, they 
w^ere contending for a principle dear to the lovers of freedom in every country 
in the world, a principle which it is the part of a Frenchman as well as an 
American to sustain. But the Zulu war was not in any sense a war of 
principle. It was not even a national English war. It was not a 
war with which the English people had any sympathy whatever. It 
was not even a war of which the English government approved. For 
it is a strange peculiarity of this chapter of her history that the policy 
of Sir Bartle Frere and the war in Zululand were condemned by no 
one more strongly than by the members of her majesty's government in 
England. The dispatches sent out to Sir Bartle Frere were constantly 
dispatches of remonstrance and complaint, even of condemnation. When 
Prince Louis Napoleon, therefore, thrust himself into this quarrel, he with- 
drew himself from any just claim to general sympathy. Regret for the 
sudden extinction of a young life of promise was but natural, and that regret 
was freely given ; but the verdict of the public remained unaltered. He had 
thrown away his life uselessly in a quarrel which brought no honor, and for 
a motive which was not unselfish and was not exalted. The death of the 
young prince imperial occurred June 1st. The ministry t)f M. Waddington 
resigned December 21st, 1879, and M. De Freycinet at once formed a new 
cabinet. 

In the early part of 1 880, France lost by death two of its renowned men. 
The first was Due de Gramont. He had been a successful diplomat, and in 
1870 he was minister of foreign affairs in the cabinet of Ollivier, but when M. 
Ollivier resigned he retired to private life. In 1873 he was made general of 
division under the republic, and in 1877 he became a commander in the 
legion of honor. The second man was Jules Favre, a French advocate and 
minister. He was born at Lyons on March 21st, 1809. He was prominent 
in the revolution of 1848, but when Napoleon HI. executed his coup d'tftaf in 
1852 he retired from public life. In September, 1870, he became minister of 
war under the provisional government and carried on the negotiations with 
Bismarck, but he resigned his office in July, 1871, and resumed the practice of 
law. He was remarkable in political repartee, and had long been accustomed 
to public strife. At the session of the chambers in 1880 M. Gambetta was 
elected president of the chamber of deputies. The celebrated Ferry's 
education bill introduced into the chamber of deputies was rejected March 



346 FRANCE.— THE NEW REPUBLIC. £1871 

9th, 1880, but the decree to expel the Jesuits from France was passed by an 
overwhelming majority. Many protests to this decree were made from all 
parts of the republic and from Rome, but it was rigidly executed on June 
30th of the same year. The religious orders were also suppressed by law. 
A general amnesty bill for all political offenses was passed the chambers July 
3d. A new ministry was formed in September, 1880, with M. Jules Ferry at 
its head. 

In the beginning of 1881 the municipal elections were favorable to the 
government, and a loan of forty million pounds sterling received bids for 
more than three times that amount. There was a long and heated discussion 
in the chambers upon the scriitin de liste, which began March 21st, and 
resulted in its rejection May 9th. The army of the republic invaded Tunis 
in April of this year, and on May 12th a treaty was signed with the bey, 
which gave France the virtual suzerainty of that country. Much excitement 
over this was manifested, especially in Italy, but the French senate ratified 
the treaty on the 23d of May. A grand reception was tendered to M. 
Gambetta at Cahors, May 25th. The autumn elections resulted in very large 
gains to the Republican party. The French troops occupied Tunis on 
October loth, and in consequence of this and the popular elections M. Jules 
Ferry resigned, and a new ministry was formed with M. Gambetta as prime- 
minister. A financial conference of all the powers was held in Paris to decide 
upon the monetary value of the precious metals for coin, in 1881. 

France was in the midst of her struggle with Tunis, with the English 
commercial treaty unsettled, and a general election just over. Troops were 
hurried into North Africa as soon as the elections were closed. After much 
suffering and further horrible massacres, the French at length occupied 
Kairwan, which proved the turning-point in the campaign, and the whole 
country was afterward gradually subjected to French arms. The result has 
been by no means altogether satisfactory, and the Enfida case, involving a 
question of disputed ownership between a French and English subject, was 
treated in the most overbearing manner, but by the firmness and tact of 
Lord Granville finally ended in a purchase by the French claimant on fair 
terms. In December, howeve*-, Europe may be said to have had its moral 
revenge. M. Rochefort having published the most disgraceful charges 
against M. Roustan, of acting under most questionable mercenary considera- 
tions, the latter was forced to bring an action for slander, which, on Decem- 
ber 15th, resulted in his utter failure to obtain a verdict, and ultimately in his 
recall from Tunis, of which all Frenchmen had become heartily sick. 

The fate of the treaty is inextricably mixed up with the shifting of 
French politics generally. After the elections, M. Gambetta was, by the 
voice of the country at large, called to the premiership. Under the free 
trade auspices of M. Gambetta hopeful progress was made ; but when the 
French session again opened, on January loth, Gambetta was already becom- 
ing unpopular. A few days later he submitted a programme for revising the 
French constitution under certain limitations by the chamber and senate in 



i884] FRANCE.-^THE NEW REPUBLIC 



347 



congress. He proposed to adopt his old project of scriitin dc listc for the 
chamber, giving to it also more, and the senate less, control over expend- 
iture ; also to modify the life-senatorships and widen the electoral basis of 
the senate. These propositions made enemies on all sides, and chiefly under 
the dread of a Gambetta dictatorship they were twice defeated at the end of 
January by heavy majorities, and M. Freycinet formed a new ministry, with 
M. Tirard as minister of commerce. The pronounced protectionism of the 
new minister brought concession to a standstill ; it was found impossible to 
obtain any such reductions from the prohibitory French tariff as made a 
treaty worth having, and on February 23d M. Tirard finally announced that 
negotiations were broken off, and introduced a bill, giving to England simply 
the treatment of the most favored nation. 

Still worse evils were to follow from the shifty character of French poli- 
tics. So far back as February, 1881, an Egyptian colonel, named Achmet el 
Ourabi — later known as Ourabi, or Arabi Bey — had been imprisoned for 
insubordination, and rescued by his troops, the revolutionary offense being 
injudiciously let pass. On September loth, Arabi, who had been sent away 
from Alexandria, ordered his regiment there, in defiance of orders. Cheriff 
Pasha, being then premier in Egypt, promised to disperse the mutinous 
troops, but failed ; and a Turkish civil commission only led to Arabi again 
leaving the city, with an ovation and with many threats. At Christmas the 
Khedive opened the chamber of notables, and was well received ; and on 
January 8th a joint dispatch was presented to him by the English and 
French representatives, stating that the two nations were resolved to main- 
tain his authority. There is no doubt that M. Gambetta had formed a true 
view of the situation, and was disposed to act energetically with England to 
maintain order. Urged on by Arabi, the chamber began to dispute with the 
Anglo-French control, and the mutinous colonel got himself made under- 
minister of war; the porte added to the disorder by protesting against the 
joint note. In February Cheriff was forced to resign, and a new ministry 
formed under Mahmoud Sahmi, which at once made a large increase in the 
army and proclaimed a "constitution." The French controller resigned, and 
European officials were dismissed wholesale ; and early in April, under pre- 
tense of a plot against himself, Arabi got all the Circassian officers in the 
army who opposed his influence condemned to death, procuring false evidence 
by torture. They were sent to Turkey instead by the combined influence of 
England and the porte, and the chamber disn^issed ; but later on, May loth, 
the notables were again convened by Arabi, without the consent of the 
Khedive and against the law. Meantime the change of government in 
France had apparently paralyzed Anglo-French interference. A fidgety ner- 
vousness had taken the place of M. Gambetta's clear policy, and France would 
neither adopt any policy of her own nor consent to invoke the interference 
of Turkey as suzerain, which appeared to England and other powers the best 
solution of the difficulty. At length things became intolerable. On May 
15th the French and English fleets were ordered to Alexandria, and ten days 



348 FRANCE.— THE NEW REPUBLIC. [1871 

later an identical note was handed in by the two powers, demanding that the 
military leaders should leave the country, allowing them, however, rank and 
pay. This was met by defiance as before ; but England was still hampered 
by the reluctance of France either to act or allow Turkey to act ; and when 
the latter sent Dervish Pasha as a commissioner on June 7th, there was a 
general hope that this measure would be successful. It turned out, however, 
that Dervish had brought an Ottoman decoration for Arabi ; and on June nth 
occurred savage anti-Christian riots in Alexandria, stirred up by Arabi and 
his prefect, in which over a hundred Europeans were killed. This helped to 
bring matters to a crisis, and England and France jointly proposed a 
European conference, which Turkey for long refused to join. It met without 
her on June 23d, but meantime, constant and fresh armaments by Arabi, in 
defiance of repeated prstests and of the Sultan's own express commands, com- 
pelled Admiral Seymour to bombard the forts, when Arabi evacuated the town 
under cover of a flag of truce, intrenching himself some miles distant at Kafr- 
Dawar, and liberating the convicts already in jail for the massacre of a month 
before, to again massacre the Christians and fire the town, which was done 
with the utmost ferocity. Alexandria was now perforce occupied by Eng- 
land, and preparations for war were hurried on by the British government, 
while Arabi was formally deposed by proclamation of the khedive, now 
under British protection. Urged on by fear of impending British action, the 
porte on July 24th entered the conference, and accepted, though in an 
evasive manner, the invitation to interfere by force of arms, attempting, with 
no success, to make it a condition that England should retire. Meantime 
France had retired more and more from all action, till finally, at the end of 
July, M. Freycinet was actually refused by the chamber a small credit of 
;^376,ooo for guarding the Suez Canal. This led to the downfall of the 
ministry, and France was left without a government for more than a week, 
when a cabinet was formed by M. Duclerc August 7, 1882. 

On the 27th of November the French steamer Cambromie was sunk in 
the British Channel by a collision, and fourteen lives were lost. On the 9th 
of December, Jean Joseph Louis Blanc, historian and radical, died at Cannes 
aged sixty-seven years. He was born at Madrid, October 28th, 1813, and 
before the revolution of 1848 had gained a European reputation as a 
radical writer ; Louis Philippe said of his " Revolution Francaise : Histoire 
de Dix Alls, 1830-1840," that "it acted like a battering ram against the 
bulwarks of loyalty in France." It seemed as if he was to take a prominent 
<part in the revolution of 1848, but he was accused to the government, and 
prosecuted for conspiracy, but made his escape to London, where he devoted 
his time to voluminous writing. On the fall of the empire In 1870 he 
returned to France, and in 1871 was a member of the chamber of deputies. 

M. Gambetta died on January ist, 1883, surrounded by his friends, at 
Ville D'Avray. While the remains of this eminent Frenchman were lying 
in state, M. Paul Deronlede had an unseemly quarrel with M. Meyer, the 
editor of the Lanternc, whom he accused of having insulted Gambetta. 



i834] FRANCE.— THE NEW RErUBLIC. 349 

High words ended in blows, and both were expelled from the mortuary 
chamber by the guard of honor. 

M. Gambetta had been wounded by a pistol shot, and on account of 
persisting to resume his public duties against the advice of his physician had 
hastened his death. A magnificent funeral at the public expense was given 
the remains, and orations were delivered by MM. Duclerc, Challimel and 
Lacour. All the departments of government, as well as the bar and many 
other organizations, united to do him honor, while French patriots in other 
countries united on the same day, January 6th, to recognize the event with 
suitable ceremonies, and resolutions of condolence were passed. Gambetta 
was born at Cahorson October 30th, 1838, and was a member of a Genoese 
family. He was admitted to the bar at Paris in 1859, but his name did not 
come prominently before the public until 1868, when he appeared to defend 
certain political offenders and showed himself a determined enemy of the 
second empire. He was elected to the chamber of deputies in 1869, and 
May 5th, 1870, pronounced himself in favor of a republic. After the 
downfall of the empire at Sedan, he became minister of the interior and 
remained at Paris until it had been completely invested by the Germans. 
Then he escaped in a balloon and alighted at Amiens. He proceeded to 
Tours, where the provisional government had its seat, and was made minister 
of war. He assumed unlimited power and tried to stir up the provinces to 
defend Paris. At the general election to form a republic in 1871, he issued a 
decree that no officer of the second empire should take part in it, but at the 
instigation of Bismarck he modified the decree and resigned his office. He 
became a member of the chambers of Paris and was leader of the extreme 
left. By his impetuous and radical speech at Grenoble he caused a severe 
reaction in popular sentiment, which led to the retirement of M. Thiers 
In 1877 he was more moderate and conservative, and led the republicans in 
their triumph of that year. But he was twice prosecuted for too bold 
speech, and once condemned to imprisonment in that same year. When M. 
Grevy became president of the republic in 1879' Gambetta was elected to 
the presidency of the chamber of deputies. He became prime-minister of 
France in October, 1881, which position he held until August, 1882, as we 
have already mentioned. 

The death of the French statesman was followed by that of two of her 
prominent generals. The first was General Antoine Eugene Alfred Chanzy. 
who was buried with military honors at Chaloris on January 8th, 1883. He 
was born in 1823, and served as an apprentice in the navy, but in 1843 
graduated from the Paris military school as sub-lieutenant of zouaves. He 
served with distinction in Algeria, Italy and Syria, and in a second war in 
Algeria. In 1868 he was made general of brigade, and in the early part of 
the Franco-Prussian war rose to be commander-in-chief of the second army 
of the Loire. He narrowly escaped death from the commune in 1870. In 
1872 he was a member of the chambers, and December, 1875, was chosen 
senator for life. In 1878 he received the grand cross of the legion of honor. 



550 FRANCE.— THE NEW REPUBLIC. [1871 

On the same day that General Chanzy was buried his old comrade-in-arms, 
General Horise de Valdau, died in an apoplectic fit. 

On January i6th, Prince Napoleon, commonly known as " Plon-Plon," 
was arrested in consequence of a manifesto which had been extensively 
circulated in Paris, and in which the claim was advanced that the Napoleonic 
inheritance should be restored to the family. He was imprisoned in the 
conciergerie, and the paper in which the manifesto first appeared was 
confiscated by government. The chambers approved this action by a vote 
of four hundred and seventeen to eighty-nine. 

In an interview with a representative of the Temps Prince Napoleon 
denied that he had any desire to obtain personal power, and said that if the 
count of Chambord ascended the throne he would be the first to seize a 
musket and mount the barricades. He added that he wished to see a strong 
man at the head of the government and would support President Grevy if 
he was chosen by the people. The prince declared the present government 
to be a failure. " Plon-Plon " made an unsuccessful attempt to escape when 
committed to the conciergerie. A bill was at once introduced into the 
chamber of deputies by M. Floquet, prohibiting the presence in France or 
Algeria of any member of former French dynastic families, and M. Fallieres, 
the minister of the interior, brought in a bill to suppress all future manifesta- 
tions by French pretenders. On January 21st France made formal protest 
against the abolition of ducal control in Egypt and recalled M. Bredir, the 
French controller. 

Paul Gustave Dore, the famous French painter and designer, died in 
Paris, January 23d. Dore was born at Strasburg January 6th, 1833, v/as 
educated at Paris, and in 1848 made his first public appearance as an artist 
with some pen and ink drawings sent to the salon. His paintings would 
have made him famous, but his world-wide reputation is based upon the 
illustrations he has furnished to many valuable books. He was a very 
prolific designer, and the wood engravers have done much to make him 
famous. Among the beSt known works illustrated by him are the Bible, 
Dante, La Fontaine's Fables, Don Quixote and Taine's Travels in the 
Pyrenees. 

Some alarm was evinced in social and commercial circles by a visit of 
the ex-Empress Eugenie to Paris, January 23d, and the wildest rumors were 
in circulation that a Bonapartist demonstration was imminent. The bill of 
M. Fallieres, minister of the interior, was brought forward again, and by a 
vote of three hundred and forty-three to one hundred and sixty-three 
the M. Fabre compromise bill was passed, and at midnight January 31st- 
February ist the chambers adjourned for one week. February ist Prince 
Jerome Bonaparte was removed to the hospital on account of illness, 
and on the 5th the examining magistrate Benoit made an order sending 
him before the court upon an indictment for an attempt to overthrow 
the government. 

On the 8th the report of the senate committee on the expulsion bill 



i884] FRANCE.— THE NEW REPUBLIC. 351 

referred to the unimportant incident which provoked the recent agitation, 
and declared that the republic is in no danger from the princes remaining in 
France. It adds that the bill could not effect the exile of the Count de 
Chambord, and concludes by asking the rejection of the measure by the 
senate. It was also reported that the Count de Chambord would issue a 
manifesto after the final adjournment of the chambers. There was held a 
meeting of communists, at which the following resolutions were unanimously 
passed: i. The government is called upon to decree the immediate sur- 
render to the nation of all the property real and personal now possessed 
by the thirty-three members of the Orleans family. 2. This act of preser- 
vation and justice is to be extended to the Bonaparte and Bourbon families. 
3. The appropriation for the benefit of the nation of all the real and personal 
property of the Rothschild family. The adoption of the last resolution is 
particularly significant at the present juncture. After the prince comes the 
turn of private individuals. 

Prince Napoleon with his son Touis arrived at London February 12th. 
The Suffrage Univej'sellc, of Paris, a Bonapartist paper, says that he 
proposes to reside in Brussels in order to avoid a possible expulsion from 
France. The committee of the chamber of deputies, February 14th, 
unanimously rejected the senate expulsion bill, and negatived by a vote of six 
to five M. Barbey's bill. The committee then approved M. Floquet's 
proposal, which provided for the immediate expulsion of the members of 
families having reigned in France. The managing committee of the 
radicals left the democratic union, and the republican union have decided 
against the measure of M. Floquet and in favor of the proposals introduced 
by M. Barbey. Prince Napoleon has published a paper entitled L'Appcl tin 
Pciiple, containing a copy of his recent manifesto. President Grevy received 
an important and influential delegation of merchants and manufactur- 
ers, who presented a petition calling attention to the critical state of affairs 
caused by the ministerial crisis. 

In the senate February 15th M. Denes, minister of justice, introduced 
the bill proposed by Senator Barbey rendering the princes liable to expulsion 
by the decree of the president of the republic. A motive for urgency was 
voted and the bill was at once referred to a committee, who made a report 
advising the rejection of Senator Barbey's substitute for the expulsion bill. 

At a meeting of the cabinet, February i8th, President Grevy accepted 
the resignation of the ministers, and it was officially announced that M. 
Ferry had been intrusted with the formation of the nev/ ministr>'. M. Ferry 
assumed the post of minister of foreign affairs ; M. Martin Feuille, minister 
of the interior ; M. Waldeck Rosseau, minister of justice ; M. Tirard, 
minister of finance; General Thibaudin, minister of war; M. Rayna), 
minister of public works ; and M. Cochery, minister of posts and telegraphs. 
The republican union resolved to support a cabinet determined to use the 
existing laws against all pretenders. 



352 FRANCE. — THE NEW REPUBLIC. [1884 

In the spring of 1883 the French government became embroiled in comph- 
cations both in Asia and Africa, which led to hostilities with the natives in 
both instances. An influential foothold had been gained in Cochin China, 
dating back to the time of the empire. In June, 1874, Phra Norodon was 
crowned as independent sovereign of Cambodia under the protectorate of 
France, and he acceeded to that country the right to establish a colony on the 
Makiang River, at a point where its four tributaries unite before entering into 
the China Sea. After this the French came to have considerable influence in 
the province, and regarded their colony as especially valuable. The king of 
Cochin China acknowledged the suzerainty of the emperor of China, but his 
vassalage was scarcely more than nominal. The monarch of this country, 
which had been increased by the addition of the province of Tonquin on the 
north, made a treaty with the French in 1874, by which three ports were 
opened to the commerce of Europe, and the integrity of Cochin China was 
assured. 

On the 20th of March four thousand Annamite or Chinese troops attacked 
Hanoi, the capital of Tonquin, but were repulsed by the French, who had 
entered under the claim that the inability of the king of Annam to assure the 
security of Tonquin compelled France to definitely establish herself there. 
A letter from President M. Grevy advised the king not to resist the demand, 
but recognize the protectorate of France and its guarantee. Re-enforcements 
were dispatched from France, and two thousand troops set sail from Toulon 
for Tonquin in the early part of May. On the 26th of this month, as Captain 
Riviere was reconnoitering on the coast with a party of four hundred men, 
about two hundred and fifty miles from Hanoi, preparatory to landing other 
parties, he was attacked by a superior force, chiefly composed of pirates, and 
driven back with a loss of twenty-six killed and over fifty wounded. The 
troops subsequently reoccupied the positions. Additional troops Avere hurried 
forward from Saigon. M. de Brun, minister of marine, sent a telegram order- 
ing the governor of Cochin China to notify the French troops that the cham- 
ber of deputies has unanimously passed the Tonquin credit, and that France 
will avenge her glorious children. Two additional iron-clads and a cruiser 
were ordered to proceed East directly. A dispatch from Hong Kong, dated 
May 27th, stated that China had taken a conciliatory attitude on the Tonquin 
question, but would maintain its right of suzerainty over Tonquin. 

The complication in Africa arose from a demand for the payment of sums 
due the French government from the kingdom of Madagascar. To accom- 
plish this the French troops, in the latter part of May, bombarded Majunga, 
and after an engagement lasting six hours landed and carried several military 
posts which had been erected by the Hovason Sakalava territory in defiance 
of French rights. Admiral Pierre also occupied the Custom House at Ma- 
junga, thus securing the road and waterway leading to Tananarivo, the capital 
of the island. In Senegal a French column under Colonel Desbordes suc- 
ceeding in driving the hostile natives back a distance of thirty-eight miles, 
and tranquillity was established on the left bank of the Niger. 



INDEX. 



ABDEL-RHAMAN. 

Abdel-Rhaman, 32. 

Abclard, a Freethinker, his struggles with the 

Church, 49. 
Academy, the French, founded by Richelieu, 

US.* 

, the (see also French Acadcjny), and 

Corneille's Czd, 149; and Racine, 186. 
of Sciences, the, 187 ; and Fontenelle, 

238. 
Acadia, French colony of, and M. de Monts, 

221 ; and the Treaty of Utrecht, 221. 
Acadians, Emigration of, 223. 
Adrets, Baron, no. 
yEduans, the, 25. 

Agincourt, the battle of, Oct. 25, 141 5, 66. 
Agnadello, the battle of, between the French 

under Louis XII. and the Venetians, 1509, 85. 
Aguesseau, Chancellor d', 196. 
Aigues-Mortes, meeting at, 97. 
Aiguillon, the duke of, 229, 233. 
Aix-la-Chapelle, residence of Charlemagne, 35 ; 

the Peace of, 1668, 157 ; Peace Congress and 

Treaty of 1748, 215. 
Alais, the Peace of, 143. 
Alaric II., king of the Visigoths, 30. 
Alauda, the, Julius Csesar's " Wakeful " Gallic 

Legion, 27. 
Albemarle, the duke of, 169. 
Alberoni, 200 ; fall of, 201 
Albigensians, the, crusade against, 50. 
Albret, Jeanne d', 105, 112. 
Alencon, the Duke d', 1 14. 
Alesia, the town of, taken, 27. 
Alexander VI., Pope, 81 ; and Louis XII., 84. 
AUemanians, the, invade the settlements of the 

Franks, a.d. 496, 30. 
Allobrogians, the, 25. 
Almanza, the battle of, 1707, 165. 
Alphonso II., king of Naples, and Charles 

VIII., 81. 
Alps, the, crossed by Francis I. and his army, 

90. 
Alsace, 150; restored to France, 160. 
Alviano, Barthelemy d', at the battle of Agna- 
dello, 85. 
Amadeo, Victor, duke of Savoy, 161, 164, 165. 
Amboise, Cardinal d', 85 ; death and character, 

86. 
, the Peace and Edict of, 1563, 108, 

1 1 1. 
Ambrons, the, and Teutons, the, defeated by 



ARRAS. 

the Romans under Marius at the rampi 
Putridi, 102 B.C., 26. 
American Independence, the Declaration of, 
July 4, 1776, 254. 

Colonies, the, independence of recog- 



nized by England, 259. 

•War of Independence, the, 254 ^?/ j-^y. 



Amsterdam, gallant defense of, against Louis 
XIV., 158. 

Amyot, James, 146. 

Anastasius, emperor of the East, 30. 

Ancenis, the treaty of, 1468, 74. 

Ancre, Marshal d' (see also Concim), death of, 
133. 134- 

Anjou, the duke of, and Charles VI., 64. 

»-, Henry, duke of, and the massacre 

of St. Bartholomew, 114; elected king of Po- 
land, 116; recalled from Poland to the crown 
of France as Henry III., 117. 

, the duke of, becomes Philip V. of 

Spain by the will of Charles II., 163. 

Anne of Austria and Louis XIII., 134; and the 
Broussel affair, 151. 

Anne de Beaujeu, government of, 79, 80. 

Anne of Brittanv, marriage of, with Charles 
VIII., 80; wife'of Louis XII., 85. 

Anne, queen of England, and the duke of 
Marlborough, 167. 

Antioch and the Crusaders, 40. 

Antoinette, Marie, and Louis XVI., 261 ; and 
court intrigues, 261 ; growing unpopularity 
of, 262 ; increase of the popular feeling against, 
264. 

Aqute Sexti^e, battle near, 26. 

Aquitania conquered by the Visigoths, 32. 

Aquitanians, the, 24. 

Arabs, incursions of the, in Southern Gaul, 32. 

Argenson, Marquis d', and the Orleans Re- 
gency, 197; and M. de Lally, 219; dismissed 
by Louis XV., 226. 

Arians, the, 30. 

Ariovistus is defeated by Julius Caesar, 26. 

Armagnac, Count James d', and Louis XL, "]%. 

Armagnacs and Burgundians, civil war between 
the,"66. 

Arnaulds, the, and M. de St. Cyran, 178, 179. 

Arnulf, 36. 

Aroet, Francois Marie, see Voltaire. 

Arques, battle of, gained by Henr)^ IV., 123. 

Arras, treaty at, in 14S2, between Louis XL 
and Maximilian of Austria, 78. 



;54 



INDEX. 



ARTOIS. 

Artois, Count Robert of, commands the army 

of Philip IV. raised to subdue the revolt in 

Flanders, and is defeated and killed at the 

battle of Courtrai, 55. 
Arvernians, the, 25. 

Assas, Chevalier d', heroic death of, 230. 
Assembly of Notables, convocation of the, 

proposed by M. de Calonne (1787), 263. 
Ass/zes of Jerusale7n, Godfrey de Bouillon's 

Code of Laws, 41. 
Ataulph, king of the Visigoths, 29. 
Attila, the famous Hun King, 29. 
Audenarde, the battle of, 165. 
Augsburg, the league of, 1686, 161. 
Augustus, sole master of the Roman world, 27. 

HI. of Poland, death of, 205. 

, Stanislaus, of Poland, 205. 

Auneau, the battle of, 1 1 9. 

Auray, battle of, costs Charles of Blois his life 

and the countship of Brittany, 63. 
Aurelius, Marcus, persecutes the Christians, 

28. 
Austrasia, kingdom of, 31. 
Austria and France, commencement of the 

rivalry between, 'j'j. 

and Henry IV., 144. 

'-, Margaret of (see also Margaret), 78. 

, Anne of, wife of Louis XIII., 150. 

Avaux, M. d', 150. 

Avignon, chosen as the papal residence by 

Clement V., 57. 

Baldwin III., king of Jerusalem, and Louis 

VIII., 42. 
Balue, Cardinal de la, JJ. 
Balzac, 148. 
Barbarigo, doge of Venice, and Charles VIII., 

81. 
Barbarossa, Frederic, 43. 
Barbezieux, 173. 
Barbier, Advocate, 233. 
Barri, Godfrey de, lord of Renaudie, 108. 
Barricades in Paris in 1648, 151. 
Bart, John, a corsair of Dunkerque, exploits of, 

159. 
Bartholomew, St., the Massacre of, events 

which led to, 113; commencement of the 

Massacre of, by the murder of Admiral Co- 

ligny, 113. 
Basques, the, 24. 
Baudricourt and Joan of Arc, 68. 
Bavaria, the duke of, gives his daughter Isabel 

in marriage to Charles, 64. 
, Judith of, becomes the wife of Louis 

the Debonnair, 36. 

-, the elector of, and the battle of 



Blenheim, 164; claims to the empire, 208 
made lieutenant-general of the armies of 
France, 205 ; proclaimed emperor as Charles 
VII., 209. 

Baville, Lamoignon de, 177. 

Bayard, Peter du Terrail, the Chevalier de, 
wounded near Romagnano ; death of that 



BONIFACE. 

" gentle knight, well-beloved of every one," 

93- 

Beaujeau, Anne de, government of, 80. 
Beaumarchais aids the Americans against Eng- 
land, 254. 

Marriage de Figaro, 161 



Beaumont, Christopher de, archbishop of Paris, 

226. 
Beauvais, siege of, by Charles the Rash, 75. 

■, the bishop of, and the trial of Joan of 



Arc, 70. 
Beauvilliers, the duke of, 180. 
Bedford, the duke of, regent of France, 67. 
Belgian province, the, of Roman Gaul, 27. 
Belgians, the, 24. 
Belle-Isle, Count, 208. 
, Marshal, coldly received at Paris, 

210; death of, 229. • 

Belzunce, Monseigneur de, heroic self-sacrifice 

and benevolence of, during the plague in 

Marseilles, 202. 
Benedict XL, Pope, and Philip IV. of France, 

56, 57- 
Bentinck, earl of Portland, 162. 
Bergen-op-Zoom, captured 1747, 215. 
Bergerac, the peace of, in 1577, 118. 
Berlin, captured and pillaged by the Russians, 

230. 
Bernard, Sam.uel, 174. 

Bernard, St., 41 ; duke of Saxe-Weimar, 143. 
Bernis, Abbe de, 225 ; dismissed by Louis XV., 

229. 
Berquin, Louis de, burnt as a heretic, 100. 
Bertrand du Guesclin, 63. 
Berry, the duke of, and Charles VI., 65. 
, the duchess of, death of, 202. 



Berulle, Cardinal, 140. 

Berwick, Marshal, and Philip V. of Spain, 165 ; 
gains the victory of Almanza, 165 ; com- 
mences the campaign of 1734 against Aus- 
tria, and is killed, 206. 

Beziers, capture of, 50. 

Biron, Marshal de, conspiracy against Henry 
IV., 132. 

Black Plague, the, 1 347-1 349, 63. 

Blanche, queen of Castile, character of ; moth- 
er of St. Louis, 57. 

Blenheim, the battle of, 1704, 163. 

Blois, Charles of, war with John of Montfort, 

63. 

•, treaty of, between Louis XII. and 



Venice, 85. 
Boileau, 186. 

-, Stephen, provost of Paris, 53. 



Bolingbroke, Lord (see also St. Jolni), and 

Voltaire, 239. 
Bologna, meeting of Francis I. and Pope Leo 

II., 91 ; siege of, raised by Gaston de Foix, 

Boniface VIII., Pope, St. Louis, claims temporal 
as well as spiritual power in the affairs of 
Christendom, 55; and his bull, "Hearken, 
most dear son ;" death of, 56. 



INDEX. 



355 



BONNIVET. 

Bonnivet, Admiral, entrusted by Francis 1. 

with tiie conduct of the war in Italy, 92. 
Bordeaux, 71 ; revolt of, againt the Salt Tax, 

1548, 102. 
Borgia, Caesar, 81. 
Bossuet, and the works of Madame Guyon, 180 ; 

and Fenelon, 180 ; head of the great French 

Catholic party, 1 80 ; the revocation of the 

edict of Nantes; death of, iSi. 
Bouchain, captured by Villars and the French, 

169. 
Boufflers, Marshal, 162 ; defends Lille against 

Marlborough and Eugene, 165 ; at Malpla- 

quet, 166. 
Bougainville, M. de, world circumnavigator, 

262. 
Bouillon, the duke of, arrested for conspiring 

with Cinq Mars, 137. 
Bourbon, Francis of. See Count d' EiigJiicn. 

, Charles, duke of, and Francis I., 90. 

, Charles II., duke of, revolt of, 93 ; 

lays-siege to Marseilles, 94; is repulsed, and 

has to fall back on Italy, 94. 

, Cardinal Charles de, 122. 

, the duke of, and the legitimized 



prmces, 198. 

-, French colony, 216. 



Bourdaloue, Father, death and character of, 

183. 

Bourges besieged by the Burgundians, 66. 

Bouteville, M. de, executed for dueling, 136. 

Bouvines, battle of, won by the French under 
Philip II., 49. 

Breda, peace of, between England and Hol- 
land, 156. 

Brescia, captured by Gaston de Foix, 87. 

Bretigny, the treaty of, between the English 
and French, 63. 

— — , Sire de, 93. 

Brigonnet, William, 100. 

Brienne and Louis XIV., 155. 

, Lomenie de, 266. 

Brissac, Charles de, 103, 128. 

Brittany, the parliament of, 224. 

, Francis II. of, and Louis XL, 74. 

, Anne of, wife of Louis XII., 81. 

Broglie, Marshal, 230. 

, the duke of, defeated at Minden, 229. 

Broussel, arrest of, 151. 

Brunswick, Grand Duke Ferdinand of, defeats 
Count Clermont at Crevelt, 228 ; defeats the 
French at Minden, 229. 

Brussels, captured by Marshal Saxe, 212. 

Buffon, 243, 244. 

, Count de, death of, in the Revolu- 
tion, 244. 

Burgundy, kingdom of, 29. 

— , the dukes of, and Charles VI., 65. 

, Philip the Bold, duke of, and Charles 

VI., 65. 

, Duke John the Fearless of, murders 

the duke of Orleans, 65 ; returns and be- 
comes master of Paris, 66. 



CATHERINE. 

Burgundy, Charles the Rash, duke of, and 
Louis XL, 73 ; and the siege of Beauvais, 
75 ; and the English in France, 75 ; defeated 
by the Swiss at Morat, 76 ; defeated and killed 
at the battle of Nancy, TJ. 

, the duke of, takes command of the 



French army in Flanders, 165 ; death of, 167. 
-, the duchess of, and Louis XIV., 190. 



Burgundians, the, 29 ; and Armagnacs, civil war 
between the, 66 ; obtain possession of Paris, 
66. 

Bussy, M. de, 218, 219. 

Bute, Lord, and Mr. Pitt, 230 ; demands the 
destruction of Dunkerque, 231. 

C.BSAR Borgia, 81. 

, Julius, and the conquest of Gaul ; de- 



feats the Helvetians, B.C. 58, 26 ; defeats the 
Germans who had invaded Gaul under 
Ariovistus, 26 ; defeats the Gauls under Ver- 
cingetorix, 27 ; encloses eighty thousand 
Gallic insurgents under Vercingetorix in the 
town of Alesia, 27. 

Calais captured from the English by Duke de 
Guise, 1558, 62; and the treaty of Cateau- 
Cambresis, 104. 

Calas, 241 ; the persecution of the, and Voltaire, 
204. 

Calixtus III., Pope, rehabilitates Joan of Arc, 

71- 
Calonne, M. de, made comptroller-general by 

Louis XVI., 261 ; extravagant measures of, 

262 ; proposes to convoke the assembly of 

notables, 263. 
Calvin, loi ; Christia7i Institutes, loi, 146. 
Cambrai, the league of, 85 ; the peace of, 1529, 

100 ; captured, 159. 
Camisards, revolt of the, 178, 179. 
Canada, early French settlements in, 220 ; and 

the treaty of Utrecht, 222 ; abandoned by 

France, 223. 
Canadians, the French, 221 ; character of, 221 ; 

devotion and courage of, 222. 
Canals, the, of Languedoc and Orleans, 171. 
Cape Breton, captured by the English, 1745, 

222. 
Capet, Hugh, and feudal France, 39 ; has his 

son Robert crowned with him, death of, A. D. 

996, 39. 
Captal of Buch, capture of, 63. 
Carcassonne, 50. 

Carloman, son of Pepin the Short, 33. 
Carlovingian line, fall of the, a.d. 937, 39. 
Carnatic, the, 11. 
Cartier, James, 220. 
Cassel, 60, 159. 
Castelnaudary, battle of, 137. 
Castries, Marshal de, 230, 258. 
Cateau-Cambresis, treaty of, 1559, 104. 
Catherine de Medici. See Medici. 

; Princess, daughter of Charles VI., of- 



fered in marriage to Henry V. of England, 
67. 



356 



INDEX. 



CATHERINE. 

Catherine II. of Russia, 232 ; and Voltaire, 241 

Catholics, the, and the edict of Nantes, 129. 

Catinat, 161, 163. 

Cauchon, Peter, bishop of Beauvais, and Joan 
of Arc, 70. 

Cavalier, the Camisard, 178. 

Cellamare's conspiracy, 198, 199. 

Celts, the, 24. 

Ceresole, victory of the French over the imperial 
forces at, 1544, 98. 

Cerignola, battle of, between the French and 
Spaniards, 1503, 84. 

Cevennes, ruins in the, 178. 

Chabannes, Philip of. Count de Dampmartin. 
See Dampmartm. 

Chalais, count of, 136. 

Chalons, the battle of, between the Franks and 
Huns, in which the latter are defeated, 29. 

Chalotais, M. de la, 233 

Chamillard, 163, 166, 174. 

Champagne, Philip of, 188. 

Champlain, Samuel de, 221, 222. 

Chandernugger, French colony, 219; restored 
to the French, 223. 

Charlemagne, sole king of the Gallo-Franco- 
Germanic monarchy, a.d. 771, 31 ; sum- 
mary of the wars of, 33 ; invades Lombardy, 
34 ; enters Rome, a.d. 800, 45 ; invades 
Spain, 34; death of, on Jan. 28, 814, 35. 

Charles III. of Austria, 165. 

of Blois, 63. 

the Bald, son of Louis the Debon- 

nair, yj. 



the Dauphin re-enters Paris, 62. 

the Fat, 36, 37. 

, son of Pepin the Short, 33. 

the Rash. See Burgundy, 

the Simple, a.d. 898, 36. 

II. of Spain and the claimants to his 

kingdom, 163. 

III. of Spain and Louis XV., treaty 

between, 1761, 231. 

IV., called the Handsome, 58. 

V. of France, 62 ; the Fifth's brothers 

and sisters, 63 ; death of, 1380, 64; character 
of, 170, 64. 

v., emperor of Germany, and Francis 

I., 92 ; and the commencement of the war 
with France, 92 ; and Charles II. of Bourbon, 
92 ; and his prisoner Francis I., 95 ; demands 
the duchy of Burgundy of Francis I., 96 ; and 
the Holy League, 98 ; and the treaty of Cam- 
brai, 97 ; enters Provence with fifty thousand 
men in 1536, 97; and Francis I., treaty and 
meeting between, 1 538, 97 ; and Henry VIII. of 
England, treaty between, 1 543, 97 ; and Francis 
\., renewal of war bet-ween, 1 542-1 544, 97; 
invades France, and forces terms on Francis 
I., 97 ; and the Protestant princes of Germany, 
97 ; at the siege of Metz, 103 ; captures 
Therouanne, 103; abdication of, 103; and 
the capture of Saint Quentin, 104. 

VI. and the duke of Burgundy; minority ; 



CINQ-MARS. 

of France invades Flanders ; enters Paris ; and 
the Princess Isabel of Bavaria, 64 ; and the 
civil war between the Armagnacs and Bur- 
gundians, 66 ; and Odette, 65 ; by the treaty 
of Troyes, leaves the crown of France to Hen- 
ry V. of England ; death of, 67. 

Charles VII., 67 ; and Joan of Arc, 68 ; coro- 
nation of, at Reims, 69; remorse for the 
death of Joan of Arc, 71 ; renders tardy hom- 
age to the memory and fame of Joan of Arc, 
71; and Jacques Coeur, character of, 72; 
troubles with his son, 71 ; death of, 73. 

Emperor, 169 ; death of, 208. 

VIII., 78; and the States-General of 



1484, Zo\ and duke Louis of Orleans, 81; 
marriage of, which Anne of Brittany, 81 ; 
prepares to win back the kingdom of Naples, 
81 ; enters Italy, 81 ; and Pope Alexander VI., 
81 ; enters Rome 1495, and Naples, 81 ; league 
of the Italian princes against, 81 ; starts to 
return to France ; wins the battle of Fornovo 
and returns to France, 82 ; government of, 
death of, 83. 

IX. and the religious wars, 1560- 

1574, accession of, 109; and the St. Barthol- 
omew, 114; and the battle of Dreux, no; 
and the Huguenots, 112; and the marriage 
of Marguerite de Valois and the prince of 
Navarre, 113; and Coligny, 113; the Guises 
and Coligny, 114 ; and the murder of Coligny, 
114 ; and Michel de I'Hospital, 115 ; and the 
fourth religious war, 115; and the peace of 
La Rochelle, 116; death of, 1574, 116. 

Charolais, Count Charles of, and Louis XL, 
74- 

Chastel, John, attempts to murder Henry IV., 

Chatelet, Madame du, and Voltaire, 211. 

Chatham, Lord (see also Pitt), 230. 

Chevert, 210. 

Chevreuse, the duke of, 180. 

Childeric, king of the Franks, 31. 

Chiverny, Chancellor de, 127. 

Choiseul, the duke of, ministry of, 229; attempt 
to invade England defeated, 229; and the 
Family Pact, 230 ; dismissed by Louis XV., 

232._ 

Christian zeal superior to pagan persecution, 
28. 

Christianity, establishment of, in Gaul, 27 ; rise 
of, 28 ; influence of, on the order of knight- 
hood, and, through it, on civilization in gen- 
eral, 40. 

Christians, persecution of, by Marcus Aurelius. 
A.D. 177, 28, 29; the, expected the end of 
the world a.d. iooo, 39. 

Church and State in the time of Louis XIII. , 
and Richelieu, 140. 

Cimbrians, or Kymrians, the, and the Teutons 
driven from their homes on the shores of the 
Baltic ; invade Gaul by the way of Belgica, 
no B.C., 25. 

Cinq-Mars, M. de, favorite of Louis XIII., 137. 



INDEX. 



357 



CITEAUX. 

Citeaux, twelve abbots and twenty monks of 
Citeaux disperse themselves in ail directions, 
preaching the crusade against the Albigen- 
sians, 50. 

Claude, the princess, of France, daughter of 
Louis XII., and Charles of Austria, 85. 

Clement, James, stabs King Henry III., 121. 

v., Pope, and Philip IV. abolish the 

order of the Templars ; death of, 57. 

VII., Pope, 97. 

VIII., Pope, absolves Henry IV., 129 ; 



annuls the marriage of Henry IV. with Mar 

guerite of Valois, 131. 

Clermont, Count, beaten at Crevelt, 228. 

Clive, " a heaven-born general," 217 ; his early 
successes against the French and their Indian 
allies ; returns to India and conquers Bengal, 
218. 

Closter-Severn, the convention of 1757, 227. 

Clotairel. of Soissons, 31. 

II. of Soissons, 31. 

Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, and Clotilde, 
marriage of ; at the battle of Tolbiac ; baptism 
of, 30 ; makes Paris the center of his domin- 
ions, 31 ; death of, in a.d. 511, 31. 

Clovis III., 31. 

Code Michati, 140. 

Coeur de Lion, Richard, in the HotyLand, 41,43. 

, Jacques, a great merchant and states- 
man, 72. 

Cognac, Francis I. at, in 1527, 96. 

Colbert, M., 155 ; and Louis XIV., able adminis- 
tration of, 171, 172 ; literary taste and work 
of, 187. 

Coligny, Admiral de, and the Reformation, 
102; influence with Charles IX., iii; at- 
tempted murder of, 113, 114. 

College Royal, the, 99. 

Collona, Sciarra, and Pope Boniface VIII., 56. 

Common weal, war of the, against Louis XL, 73. 

Communes, and the third estate, rise of the, 

5«. 59- 

Commynes, Philip de, quoted, 72 ; and Louis 
XL, 75- 

Compagnie des Indes, Law's, 197. 

Concini, Concmo, 132; stQ Afars/ial d'Ancre. 

Concordat, the, between Pope Leo X. and 
Francis I., 91. 

Conde, Prince Louis de, 105, 108 ; trial of, sen- 
tenced to death, loS ; taken prisoner at Dreux, 
no; death of, at Jarnac, 112. 

, the duke of Enghien, prince of, at 

the, 157; and the Frondeurs, 152, 153; ar- 
rested; taken back to favor by Louis XIV., 
and to all his honors, 1 54 ; placed by Louis 
XIV. in command of the army to be employ- 
ed in the reduction of the Netherlands, com- 
mands the French army in Holland ; gains 
the bloody battle of Seneffe over the prince 
of Orange, 1674, 158; and Bossuet, 182. 

Conflans, Lord de, assassinated, 61. 

, the marquis of, defeated by Admiral 

Hawke, 229. 



DENIS. 

Conflans, treaty of, between Louis XL and the 
count of Charolais. 74. 

Conquest of England by the Normans, 40. 

Conrad III., emperor of Germany, arrives at 
the Holy City almost alone, 42. 

Constantine, the emperor, 27, 29. 

Constantinople, in danger from the Crusaders, 
41- 

Contades, the marquis of, 229. 

Cook, Captain, and the generous attitude of the 
French toward his mission, 262. 

Coote, Colonel, captures Bussy, 219; captures 
Pondicherry, 220. 

Corneille, Peter, 186; and Richelieu, 149; his 
Cid, 149; works of, 185 

Corsica, and Pascal Paoli, 235. 

Cosse, Marshal de, 199. 

Courtrai, battle of, in which the French are de- 
feated by the Flemings, 55. 

Coysevox, 1S8. 

Crequi, Marshal de, subdues Lorraine, 160. 

Crevelt, battle of, 228. 

Cromwell, Oliver, and Mazarin, treaty between, 
and English aid to France, 1 53. 

Crusade, the, of Godfrey de Bouillon, 40 ; of 
Richard Coeur de Lion, Philip Augustus of 
France, and Frederic Barbarossa of Ger- 
many, 43 ; end of the third great, 43 ; the 
sixth, the personal achievement of St. Louis, 
44; of St. Louis, end of, 46. 

Crusaders and Saladin, 43. 

Culloden, battle of, 213. 

Dagoeert I., 31. 

D'Aguesseau, character of ; appointed chancel- 
lor, 196. 

D'Aiguillon, the duke of, 229, 233. 

D'Alembert, 243. 

Damiens attempts to assassinate Louis XV., 
226. 

Damietta captured by St. Louis, 44. 

Dampierre, Guy de, count of Flanders, 54. 

Dantzick, siege of, 206. 

D'Argenson, M., 197. 

D'Asfeldt, Count, and the campaign of 1734, 
206. 

D'Aubign^, Theodore Agrippa ; character of, 

131- 

Daun, General, defeats the Prussians at Hoch- 
kirch, 228. 

Dauphin, the, and Edward III., and the Eng- 
lish, 61. 

, the, son of Charles VI., assumes the 



title of regent, 61. 

-, the, son of Louis XV., cha.racter and 



death of, 235. 
Dauphiny, the parliament of, 266. 
D'Emery, 151. 
Deffand, Madame du, 244. 
De Luynes, Constable, 135, 136. 
Denain, captured by Villars and the French ; 

effects of the battle of, 169. 
Denis, Saint, 127. 



358 



INDEX. 



D'EPERNON. ] 

D'Epernon, 128, 133. 

De Richemont, the Constable, his character and 
part in the successes of France at the close of 
the one hundred years' war, 71, 72. 

Descartes, Rene, life, character, and works of, 

147. 

Desmarets, 174. 

De Thou, 115, 121, 128, 137. 

Dettingen, the battle of, 110. 

Diderot, 242, 243. 

Didier, king of Lombardy, 34. 

Domremy, native place of Joan of Arc, 68. 

Douai, captured by Villars and the French, 
169. 

Dreux, results of the battle of, 1 10. 

Dreux-Breze, the marquis of, 270. 

Druidism, the national religion of the Gauls, 28. 

Dubarry, Madame, and Louis XV., 234 ; and 
the fall of the French parliament, 234 ; grow- 
ing contempt of her by the people, 234. 

Dubois, Abbe, character of, 199; and Lord 
Stanhope, 199; how he became archbishop 
of Cambrai, 202 ; elected Cardinal, 202 ; 
becomes premier minister of the Orleans 
regency ; death and character, 202 ; and the 
Protestants, 204. 

Dubourg, A. De, martyrdom of, 107. 

Duels, severe ordinance against, 136. 

Dunkerque, destruction of, demanded by Pitt, 
and by Lord Bute, 231. 

Dunois and the maid of Orleans, 69. 

Dupleix, Joseph, 216. 

Duplessis Guenegaud and Louis XIV., 155. 

Du Plessis-Mornay, 130, 133. 

Duprat, Anthony, and Francis L, 90 ; and the 
Concordat, 91 ; death of, 97. 

Duquesne and Admiral Ruyter, 159; bom- 
bards Algiers and Genoa, 161. 

Duras, Marshal, 161. 

Dutch, the, declare war against England, 257. 

ECOUEN, the edict of, 106. 

Edict chamber, the, 129. 

of Nantes, the (see also Nantes), is- 
sued by Henry IV., 129; revoked by Louis 
XIV., 1685, 161, 175. 

of Grace, the, signed at Alais, 143. 

of Union, the, 151. 

of 1 724, the, against the Protestants, 



204. 

Edward the Black Prince, death of, 63. 

III. of England, 58 ; war with Philip 

VI. of France, 60 ; and his prisoner. King John 
of France, 62 ; again invades France, declares 
war with Charles V., 61 ; death of, 63. 

• IV. of England's claims on France, 74. 



FERDINAND. 

England, conquest of, by William the Bastard, 
1066, 40. 

and Flanders in the 13th century, 48 ; 



Elizabeth, queen of England, and the treaty of 
Cateau-Cambresis, 104; death of, 130. 

, Madame, and Marie Antoinette, 261. 

Encyclopaedists, the, 242, 243. 

Enghien, Francis of Bourbon, Count d', 98. 

, the duke of, and the relief of Rocroi, 

150. 



and France, origin of the Hundred Years' War 
between, 58 ; and France, outbreak of war 
between, in 15 12, 87; and the revolt of La 
Rochelle, 115; and Holland, alliance between, 
at the marriage of William of Orange and 
the Princess Mary, 1677, 159; and France 
declare war with Spain, 171 9, 201 ; and the 
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, 205 ; rise of 
her power in America, and decline of that of 
France, 222 ; and France, war between, in 
1756, 225 ; French attempt to invade, in 1759, 
defeated by Admiral Hawke, 229 ; declares 
war with Spain, 1762; and the partition of 
Poland, 1772, 236 ; and the American War of 
Independence, 253 et seq. ; and France, com- 
mencement of war between, 1778, 255 ; 
threatened invasion of, by France and Spain, 
256; at war with France, Spain, and Amer- 
ica, declares war against Holland, 257. 

English, the, and Marcel, 61 ; defeated by 
Joan of Arc, raise the siege of Orleans, 68 ; 
evacuate Paris, 71 ; and France under Louis 
XL, 74; invade France under Henry VIIL, 
and take Boulogne, 87 ; and Philip II. of 
Spain invade France ; expedition against La 
Rochelle defeated, 142 ; and the battle of 
Fontenoy, 212. 

Epernon, the duke of, 122, 133. 

Epinay, Madame d', and Rousseau, 245. 

Escurial, the, 129. 

Espremesnil, M. d', 265. 

Estates-General, assembled at Paris, 56. 

, the three, of 1468, 58. 

Estaing, Count d', commands the French 
fleet sent to aid the Americans, 255. 

Estelle, Sheriff, and the plague in Marseilles, 202. 

Estienne, Robert (Stephanus), 146. 

Estrees, Gabrielle d', 131. 

•, Marshal d', commander of the French 



army at the commencement of the Seven 
Years' War, repulses the duke of Cumberland, 
226. 
Eudes, duke of Aquitania, 32. 

, count of Paris, defends Paris against 



the Northmen, 36. 
Eugene, Prince, of Savoy-Carignano, 161 ; and 
Marlborough, 163; and Villeroi, 163, 164; 
and the battle of Malplaquet, 166; and the 
campaign of 1734, 206. 

Family Pact, the, between France and Spain, 

1761, 231. 
Farel, William, 100. 
Farnese, Alexander. See Parma. 
Fenelon, Bossuet, and Madame Gu^'on, 175 ; 

birth of, 165 1, and early life of, 183; made 

preceptor of the duke of Burgundy, his Tele- 

maque, 183; death of, 183. 
Ferdinand the Catholic of Spain and Louis 

XII., 86, 87, 90. 



INDEX. 



:39 



FERDINAND. 

Ferdinand II. of Naples and Charles VIII., Si. 
Feria, duke of, leaves Paris Avith the Spanish 

troops, 128. 
Feudal France and Hugh Capet, 39. 
sj^stem, the essential elements of the, 

society and Louis XL, j-^. 

Feudalism in France, 38. 

Flanders submits to Philip IV., 54 ; and Charles 
IX. of France, 113. 

Fleet, the French, and Colbert, 128; under 
Louis XV., 225. 

Fleix, the peace of, in 1580, 118. 

Fleurus, battle of, 1690, 162. 

Fleury's, Cardinal, ministry, 1 723-1 748, 205 ; 
commencement of his fostering administra- 
tion, 206 ; concludes the peace of Vienna, 
1735, 207; and the parliament of Paris, 207 ; 
death and character of, 210. 

Fleury, M. Joly de, 246. 

Florence, the republic of, and Charles VI I L, Si. 

Floridas, the, confirmed to Spain, 223. 

Foix, Gaston de, duke of Nemours, takes 
command of the French army in Italy, 1512, 
86 ; death of, at the victory of Ravenna, 87. 

Fontaine, La (see also La Fontai7ie), 186. 

Fontaine Frangaise, encounter at, 129. 

Fontainebleau, peace of, 1762, 231. 

Fontenelles, battle of, 37. 

Fontenelle, character and works of, 238. 

Fontenoy, the battle of, 212. 

Fontrailes, Viscount de, 137. 

Fornovo, the battle of, 1495, in which Charles 
VIII. of France defeats the army of the Ital- 
ian league, 82. 

Fouquet, Superintendent, and Louis XIV., 155, 
170. 

France, kingdom and histor}'' of, really com- 
menced with Clovis, A.D., 481, 30; and Eng- 
land, origin of the "rivalry" between, 60; 
the kingship in, 47-56 ; and England, orig- 
in of the Hundred Years' War between, 58 ; 
and England, end of the Hundred Years' 
Vx'ar between, 71 ; under Charles VII., 72; 
and Austria, commencement of the rivalry 
between, 85 ; invaded, 88 ; and England, 
renewal of the war between, 1512, 87; the 
sittiation of, in 1513, 88; and the Renais- 
sance, 90-99 ; and the nascent reformation, 
99; and the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, 104; 
state of, at the commencement of the reign of 
Henry III., 107 ; condition of, after Henry 
IV.'s abjuration, 127; and England, treaty 
between, in 1697, 162 ; and sufferings of, dur- 
ing the reign of Louis XI V., 1 72 ; and England 
declare war with Spain, 1719, 201 ; and the 
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, 215 ; inability 
of, to turn her discoveries in foreign lands to 
her own profit, 222 ; leaves Canada to her 
fate, 223 ; position of, at the end of the Seven 
Years' War, 235 ; and the partition of Poland, 
1772, 236 ; the effects of Voltaire's writings on, 
242 ; and the American War of Independ- 



FREDERICK. 

ence, 253; and England and the American 
War of Independence, 254 ; recognizes the in- 
dependence of the United States, 1778, and 
declares war with England, 255 ; and the peace 
between England and America, 1783, 259 ; on 
the eve of the Revolution, 264. 

Francis I., 89 ; and Charles V., 90 ; the era of 
modern France commences with his govern- 
ment and times, 89 ; made king, 89 ; prepares to 
invade Italy, 90; and his army cross the Alps, 
and the battle of Melegnano, 90 ; regains pos- 
session of Milaness, 91 ; Pope Leo X., the 
Pragmatic Sanction, 91, 92; and the Con- 
cordat, and the parliament of Paris' refusal, 
to acknowledge the Concordat, 92 ; and the 
vacant throne of the Emperor Maximilian, 
92 ; and Charles of Austria, commencement 
of the struggle between, 92 ; nieets Henry 
VIII. of England at The Field of the Cloth 
of Gold, 92 ; commences war with Charles V. 
92 ; and Charles II. of Bourbon, 93 ; and the 
conspiracy of Charles II. of Bourbon, 93 ; 
entrusts the conduct of the war in Italy to 
Admiral Bonnivet, 93 ; loses Milaness for the 
third time, 94 ; advances to the relief of 
Marseilles, 94; enters Italy, 1524,95; brav- 
ery and capture at the battle of Pavia, 95 ; 
his letters to his mother after his defeat and 
capture at Pavia, 95 ; carried prisoner to 
Spain, 95 ; refuses to accede to the terms of 
Charles V. of Germany, 96 ; set at liberty, 
enters into the Holy League, 96 ; and Henry 
VIII. of England renew their alliance, 96; 
makes peace with Charles V. at Cambria, 97 ; 
and Duprat, 97 ; and Henry VIII., meeting 
and treaty between, 1532, 97; and Soliman, 
II., treaty between, 98 ; and Charles V., war 
renewed between, from 1 542 to 1 544, 98 ; 
forced to terms by Charles V. of Germany, 
98 ; and the Renaissance, 98 ; and the Col- 
lege Royal, or College dc Ff-ance, 99 ; and 
the Reformation, 99 ; and the reformers, 100 ; 
and the Protestants of Germany, loi ; and the 
massacre of the Vaudians, loi ; and Calvin, 
loi ; death of, 1547, 101 ; and the salt-tax at 
Rochelle, 102. 

Francis I., emperor of Germany 212. 

II. and Mary Stuart, marriage of, 104; 



ascends the throne, 1 06 ; and the reformers, 
107, 108 ; and the Guises, 107 ; and the king 
of Navarre, 108 ; death of, and the Guises 
109. 

Franks, the, first mention of in history 29. 

Frederick Barbarossa (Redbeard), joins in a 
new crusade, 43 ; drowned in the Selef on 
his way to the Holy Land, 43. 

the Great, 208 ; commences the Silesian 



campaign, 1740, 208 ; signs a new treaty with 
France, 1744, 208; and the battle of Fon- 
tenoy, 212; and Louis XV., 212; and the 
treaty of Aix-Ia-Chapelle, 215 ; England, and 
the Franco- Austrian alliance, 225 ; victori- 
ous at Prague, and defeated at Kolin 226 ; 



360 



INDEX. 



FRENCH. 

reverses of, 227 ; gains the battle of Rosbach 
228 ; defeats the Austrians at Lissa, 228 ; 
gains the battle of Zorndorf, and loses that 
of Hochkirch, 228 ; reverses of, in 1760, 230 ; 
finds an ally in Peter III. of Russia, 231 ; and 
the end of the Seven Years' War, 232 ; and 
the partition of Poland, 236 ; invites Voltaire 
to Berlin, 240. 

French, the, rise out of and above the feudal 
system, 49 ; and English, commencement of 
hostilities between, in 1292, 54. 

Communes, the, 57-59. 

civilization, The Third Estate, the most 

active and determined element in the process 
of French civilization, 59. 

nationality accomplished, 60. 

langxiage, the, and the Renaissance, 99. 

Academy, early days of the, 148 ; and 



Montesquieu, 237 ; elects Buffon, 244. 

reformers, the, and Louis XIV., 177. 

court, demoralization of, under Louis 



XV^., 203. 
pioneers, the earliest in North America, 



220, 221. 

Guiana, 235. 



Fronde, the, 151; of the princes of France and 
of the people, 152; the army of, fighting 
between, and the royal troops ; defeat of, 

153- 
Frondeurs, the, 152, 153. 

Gabel, or the salt-tax, 102. 
Gaeta, siege of, 1504, 84. 
Galatians, the, 25. 
Galigai, Leonora, 133. 
Gallia Comata, 27. 

Togata, or Roman Gaul, 27. 

Galilean confession, the, 105. 

Garonne, the river, 24. 

Gaul, 23 ; conquered by Julius Csesar, 26, 27 ; 

under Roman dominion, 25. 
Gauls, the, 24; and Greeks of Asia Minor 

in subjection, 25 ; commence their four 

hundred years' war with Rome, B.C. 391,25; 

defeat the Romans at Aretium, 283 B.C., 25. 
Genoa, defense of, by the duke of Boufflers, 

214; cedes Corsica to France, 1768, 235. 
George I. of England and Dubois, 200. 
II. of England and the Pragmatic 

Sanction, 209 ; and the war with France, 

1744., 210; death of, 1760, 230. 

III. of England, 230, 255, 257, 259. 



Geoffrin, Madame, 244, 

Germans, the ancient, first became a nation in 
Gaul, 29. 

Germany joins in the Crusades, 41. 

Ghent, alliance at, in 1340, between the Flem- 
ish Communes and Edward III. of England, 
60 ; insurrection of the burghers of, under 
Philip Van Artevelde, 74 ; captured bv Louis 
XIV., 159. 

Gibraltar, 258. 

Girardon, 188. 



HELVETIANS. 

God's Peace, God's Truce, 39. 

Godeheu, M., supersedes Dupleix, 21 8. 

Godfrey de Bouillon (see Bouillon), duke of 
Lorraine, accepts the office of king of Jeru- 
salem, 41. 

Gondebaud, 30. 

Gontran of Orleans and Burgundy, 31. 

Gonzalvo of Cordova, the great captaijt of 
Ferdinand of Spain, 84. 

Goodfellows, the, 62. 

Gordes, the Count de, 115. 

Goths, the, under Alaric II., beaten by Clovis 
near Poitiers, a.d. 507, 30. 

Graeco-Roman paganism, 28. 

Grailli, John de, called the captal of Buch, 63. 

Grand Alliance, the, against France and Louis 
XIV., 159, 164. 

Grand Monarqtce, 190. 

Great Britain and the American declaration of 
independence, 1776, 255. 
Mogul, the, 217. 



Gregory XIV., Pope, 123. 

Gretry, musician, 248. 

Grignan, Madame de, and Madame de Sevigne, 

184, 185. 
Grisons, the, 144.. 
Guastalla, the battle of, 207. 
Gueschn, Bertrand du, 63 ; death of, 64. 
Guinegate, battle of, 'jj. 
Guise, 106, 

, Francis de Lorraine, duke of, 102 ; and 



the siege of Metz, 103 ; recalled from Italy by 
Henry II. to repel the Spaniards, 104; cap- 
tured Calais, 104; Conde, 105; and the 
Huguenots of Vassy, 109 ; assassination of, 
no. 

Duke Henry de, 117; obtains his name 



of Tlie Scarred, while putting down the 
Protestant revolt, ii8; becomes master of 
Paris, 119; murdered by order of Henry, 120. 

Guises, the, and the death of Francis II., 109; 
and the Catholic party declare war against 
Conde and the Protestants, r 10 ; and Coligny, 
113; and the murder of Coligny, 114; and 
Philip II. of Spain, 118. 

Guiton, John, burgess of La Rochelle at the 
time of the siege by Louis XIII., [42. 

Gustavus Adolphus and Richelieu, 144, 145. 

Guyon, Madame, teachings and works of, 175, 
176. 

Harlay, Francis de, and Innocent XL, 
181. 

Haro, Don Louis de, ambassador to France, 
of Philip IV. ot Spain, 154. 

Hastence of Hastings, chieftain of the North- 
men, ravages France, 36. 

Hautefort, Marie d', and Louis XIII., 137. 

Hawke, Admiral, 229. 

Helvetians, abandon their territory, 58 B.C., but 
are thwarted in their project of settling in 
Gaul by Julius Csesar, and defeated and driv- 
en back by him, 26. 



INDEX. 



361 



HENRIETTA. 



Henrietta of England, 157. 

of France and Charles of England, 

144- 

Henry I., grandson of Hugh Capet, 39. 

H. of France, 1547- 15 59, 102 ; and the 

revolt against theo-a/?^:/ or salt-tax, 102 ; and 
the treaty, prepares for war with Charles V. 
of Germany, 103 ; and Mary of England, war 
declared between, 104; and the Spanish in- 
vasion of France ; and the treaty of Cateau- 
Cambresis, 104; and the Reformation, 104; 
accidentally mortally wounded by the Count 
de Montgomery, death of, 105. 

III. of France and the religious wars, 

1 574-1 589, 115; disappointment caused by 
his first acts as king ; and the league ; dif- 
ficulties of his government, 117; and Henry 
of Navarre, 117 ; and Duke Henry de Guise, 
T18; escapes from Paris and the Duke de 
Guise, 119; at the States-General of Blois, 
119; and the murder of Guise, 120; and 
Henry of Navarre, 120; stabbed by a monk, 
121 ; death of, 1589, 114. 

IV. of France, 122 ; policy of, 122 ; and 



the Cardinal de Bourbon, 1 22 ; defeats the duke 
of Mayenne at Arques, 123; at the battle of 
Ivry, 124; besieges Paris, 124; and the duke 
of Parma, 124; and the siege of Rouen, 
125 ; decides to turn Cathohc, 126; besieges 
Dreux, 126; turns Catholic, 126; anointed at 
Chartres, 127; enters Paris, 1594, 128; at- 
tempted murder of, 128; declares war with 
Philip II. of Spain, 128; gallant conduct 
at the encounter of Fontaine-Frangaise, 
129; makes peace with Spain at Vervins, 
issues the edict of Nantes, 129 ; foreign policy 
of, 130; his ministers,. 130, 131 ; and Mar- 
guerite of Valois, annulment of their marriage, 
131 ; and Biron's conspiracy, 132; assassin- 
ated, 132. 

Henry V., emperor of Germany, declines battle 
with Louis VI., 48. 

V. of England, the battle of Agincourt, 

66 ; resumes his campaign in France, 67 ; 
death of, at Vincennes, 67. 

VI. of England, 67 ; crowned at Paris, 



143 1, 6^ 

VIII. of England and the league of the 

Holy Union, 1511,85; sends a fleet to aid 
Ferdinand of Spain, 87 ; makes peace with 
Louis XII., 88 ; and European affairs in 15 19, 
92 ; meets Francis I. at The Field of the Cloth 
of Gold, 92 ; and the Holy League, 96 ; and 
Charles V. of Germany, treaty between, 1543, 
97 ; invades France, 97 ; and the Reformation, 
100. 

Plantagenet, duke of Normandy, count 

of Anjou, marries Eleanor of Aquitaine, and 
on the death of Stephen, in 11 54, he becomes 
king of England, 42. 

Hochkirch, the battle of, 228. 

Hochstett, the battle of. 1704, 163, 164. 

Holland, liberty and prosperity of, secured by 



JANSENISM. 



Heinsius, at the expense of her political posi- 
tion in Europe, 162; joins England against 
Louis XV., 210. 
Holy City, the, 40. 

League, 86, 96. 



— Sepulcher, 40. 



Honorius III., Pope, 51. 

Hospital, Chancellor de 1', 107, 109, 112, 115. 

Hotel des Invalides and Louvois, 173. 

Howe, Lord, revictuals Gibraltar during the 

three years' siege, 258. 
Huguenots, the, persecution of, 108 ; and the 

fall of La Rochelle, 142; and Richelieu, 143; 

and Louis XI\'., 175. 
Hunie, History of Enoiand, -quoted, 50. 
Hundred Yea'rs' War^ the, 58 ; Charles V., and 

the, 62; Charles VII., Joan of Arc, 1422- 

146 1, and the, 68 ; Joan of Arc's, the glory of 

bringing to an end the, 7 1 . 
Huns, the, arrival of, in Gaul, under their king, 

Attila, A.D. 451, 29 , driven out of Gaul, 29. 
Huss, John, 99. 
Hyder Ali and the struggle against the English 

in India, 218, 257. 

Ibarra, Don Diego d', 128. 
Iberians, the, 24. 

Ibn-al-Arabi, Saracen chief, 34. ' 
He de France, colony of, 216. 
India company, the French, 216. 

companies, the, rivalry between the 



French and English, 216-220. 

, the French in, 216. 

lost to France, 231. 



Ingeburga, Princess, of Denmark, wife of 
Philip Augustus, 51. 

Innocent III., Pope, summons France to ex- 
tirpate the Albigensians ; and Simon de 
Montfort, 50; death of, 57 ; and the conjugal 
irregularity of Philip Augustus, 50. 

XL, Pope, and the Augsburg League 



against Louis XIV., 161. 
XIII., Pope, makes Dubois a cardinal. 



Irenajus. St., second bishop of Lyons, a.d. 177 

-202, 29. 
Iron mask, the, 1 89. 
Iroquois, the, 222. 
Islamism, the tide of, rolled back by the wars 

of the Crusades, 32. 
Italian League, the, and Charles VIII., 81. 
Italy, the wars of, and Charles VIII. , 81 ; the 

wars in, and Louis XII., 82, 83. 
Ivr}', the battle of, 1590, 124. 

Jacobite rising, the Scottish, of 1745, 213. 

Jacquery, the, 62. 

facgues, Bofihoiniiie. 62. 

James 1. of England and the marriage of his 
son Prince Charles, 144. 

Jansenism in France, 174; Louis XIV.'s last 
blow at, 175 \fansenism and Mme. de Main- 
tenon, 175. 



362 



INDEX. 



JANSENISTS. 

Jansenists, the, set at liberty, 195. 

Jansenius and his teaching, 179. 

Jardin des Plaiites, Le, and Richelieu, 149 ; 
and Buffon, 244. 

Jarnac, the battle of, 1569, 112. 

Jeannin, President, 115. 

Jerome of Prague, 99. 

Jerusalem, the cradle of Christianity, 40; be- 
sieged by the Mussulmans, siege and capture 
of, by the Crusaders, 40 ; under Christian 
rule, I loo-i 186, 41 ; the fall of the Christian 
kingdom of, causes great consternation 
throughout Christendom, 41. 

Jesuits, the, 128, 221 ; the Portuguese, under 
Louis XV., 232, 233 ; the Order of, dissolved 
by Rome, 233 ; the Society of the, suppressed 
in France by the edict of 1764, 233 ; expelled 
from Spain, 233. 

Joan Hachette, 75. 

of Arc, 68, 69, 70. 

John Lackland, king of England, and Philip IL 
of France, 47. 

L of France, 58. 

IL, king of France, called the Good, 61 ; 

defeated and taken prisoner at the battle of 
Poictiers, his captivity in England, 61 ; his 
ransom ; set at liberty and escorted to France ; 
voluntarily returns to captivity in England, 
and dies in London, 1364, 62. 

Judith, the Empress, 36. 

Julius II. , Pope, 85 ; and the Venetians ; his 
j oy at the death of Cardinal Amboise, 86 ; death 
of, 87. 

Karikal, 217 ; restored to the French, 259. 

Karle, or Callet, William of, 62. 

Keith, Lord, and Voltaire, 241, 

Keppel, Admiral, 255. 

Kersaint, Admiral de, 257. 

Khevenhuller, General, 209. 

Kingship, the, in France, decay of, 223, 232. 

Kolin, battle of, 226. 

Kymrians, the, 24. 

Kymro-Belgians, 25. 

La Bourdonnais, 216. 

La Bruyere, character and works of, 185. 

Ladies' peace, the, 97. 

La Fayette, Louis de, and Louis XIII., 137. 

, Madame de, and Rochefoucauld, 184. 

lands in America, 1777, 254; and 

Washington, 255. 
La Fontaine, 186. 
Lagrange, 262. 
Lally-Tolendal, Count ; sails with a French fieet 

to avenge the French reverses in India, 219; 

accused of treason and beheaded, 220. 
Languedoc, the estates of, and the Chancellor 

Duprat, 91. 

Canal, the, 171. 

, persecution of the Protestants of, 

under Louis XIV., 178. 
Lannoy, viceroy of Naples, 95, 96. 



LOUIS THE GERMANIC. 

La Peyrouse, M. de la, 263. 

Laplace, M. de, 262. 

La Rochelle, obstinate resistance of the citi- 
zens of; capitulation of, to Louis XIIL. 
1628, 142. 

Latin paganism, 28. 

La Tremoille, 122. 

Lautrec, Marshal de, 92 ; death of, 96. 

Lauzun, M. de, 189. 

La Valliere, Mdlle. de, and Louis XIV., 189. 

Lavoisier, 262. 

Law, John, the Scottish adventurer ; birth, 
character and schemes of, 196-200. 

Lawfeldt, the battle of, 214. 

League of the Holy Union, against Louis XII., 
87. 

League, the, of the sixteenth century, and 
Henry III., 117; and Henry IV., 123. 

, the Spanish, 125. 

the French, 125, 126, 127. 



Leaguers, the, and the murder of Guise, 120; 
defeated b}^ Henry IV. at Arques, 123. 

Leake, Admiral, captures Sardinia, Minorca, 
and Port Mahon, 165. 

Lebrun, Charles, 188. 

Leclerc, John, first French martyr of the Re- 
formation, 100. 

Leckzinska, Mary, and Louis XV., 235. 

Lens, the victory of, 150. 

Leo X., Pope, and Louis XII. of France, 88 ; 
and Francis I., 91 ; and the battle of Melegna- 
no, 9.2 ; and the Concordat with. Francis I., 92. 

Le Poussin and Louis XIV., 188. 

Le Ouesnoy, captured by Villars and the 
French, 169. 

Lerida, captured 1707, 165. 

Lesdiguieres, 126. 

Lespinasse, Mdlle., 244. 

L'Estoile, quoted, 116. 

Lesueur, Eustache, and Poussin, 188. 

Lettres Persanes, the, 237. 

Liege, the siege of, by Louis XL and Charles 
the Rash, 75. 

Lille captured, 1707, by Eugene and Marlbor- 
ough, 165. 

Lionne, De, and Louis XIV., 156. 

Lissa, the battle of, 228. 

Literature, French, of the Renaissance, 99 ; 
tempo Richelieu, 146, 150. 

Lombards, the, 33. 

Longueville, the Duke de, 152, 157 

Longjumeau, the peace of, 112. 

Lorraine, 159, 160, 163. 

, Cardinal Louis of, 102. 

Prince Charles of, 211 ; and the battle 



of Raucoux, 213; defeated at Lissa by 
Frederick the Great, 228. 

-, Francis de, duke of Guise, 102, 103. 



Lothaire, emperor of the Franks, a.d. 817, 37. 
Louis the Debonnair, or, Louis the Pious, 36 ; 

divides his kingdom between his sons, 36 ; 

death of, 37. 
the Germanic, 37. 



INDEX. 



>^3 



LOUIS, PRINCE. 

Louis, Prince, son of Philip Augustus, 51. 

v., the Sluggard, 38, 

VI., the Fat, energ)^ and efficiency of, and 

expeditions against his rebel subjects, 47. 

VII., the Young, his unimportant but 



long reign, 41, 48 

Vfll. of France, 49. 

IX., or St. Louis. See Sf. Louis. 

X.. called the Quarreler, 57, 58. 

XL, youth of, 72 ; and the rebel barons, 

73 ; and the count of Charolais, 74 ; and 
Charles the Rash of Burgundy, 74 ; held by 
Charles the Rash, 75 ; accompanies Charles 
the Rash to the siege of Liege, 75 ; and 
Edward IV. of England, 75 ; and the death 
of his brother Charles, 76 ; the death of 
Charles the Rash, T'j ; failure of the main 
policy of, "j^ ; his three great services to 
France, 78 ; death of, 1483, 79 ; the family of, 

79- 

XII., crowned at Reims, 83 ; foreign 

policy and home government of, 88 ; charac- 
ter of, private life of, 88 ; marries Princess 
Mary, sister of Henry VI II., 89 ; death of, 89, 

XIII. , youth of, 133 ; and the murder of 

D'Ancre, 133; and Anne of Austria, 134; 
and Richelieu, 134; and Luynes, 134; Mary 
de' Medici, civil war between, 134; Duke 
Henry of Montmorency beheaded, 136, 137; 
Richelieu and foreign affairs, 144 ; illness and 
death of, 146 ; Richelieu and literature, 146- 
150. 

XIV., and the policy of Richelieu, 152 ; 

the government of Cardinal Mazarin, 1643- 
1661, 153; and the great Conde, 154; mar- 
riage of, with the infanta of Spain, 1 54 ; the 
council of, 155; and Fouquet, 155; the 
peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1668, 157; war 
with Holland, 157 ; reduces Franche-Comte, 
157; concludes peace with Holland, 159; 
declares war against Holland and the empire, 
158 ; effects of his revocation of the edict of 
Nantes, 161 ; the grand alliance against; his 
wars and the partition of the king of Spain's 
dominions, 163 ; answerable for the religious 
persecutions of his reign, 181 ; and literature 
and art, 182-188; egotism of, 190; his will, 
192 ; death bed of, 190; death of, 191. 

XV., character of his reign, 194; de- 
moralization of his court, 203 ; and the 
ministry of Cardinal Fleury, 1 723-1 748, 205 ; 
he declares war against England and Maria 
Theresa, 210; joins the army in person, 210; 
the battle of Fontenoy, 212; returns in tri- 
umph to Paris, 213 ; and the treaty of Ai.x-la- 
Chapelle, 215; France in the colonies, 1745- 
1763, 216-224; declares war with England, 

1755, 225 ; and the Franco-Austrian alliance, 

1756, 225 ; and the outbreak of the Seven 
Years' War, 226 ; and the Family Pact with 
Spain, 231 ; and the annexation of Corsica, 
235 ; death, and character of, 1774, 236; the 
philosophers of his time, 236. 



MARCHE. 

Louis XVI., and Marie Antoinette, 248; the 
coronation of, 251 ; France abroad — United 
States War of Independence, 1775-1783, 253; 
his aid to the Americans, 254; France at 
home — ministry of M. Necker 1 776-1 781, 
260 ; convocation of the States-general, 17S7- 
1789, 263 ; and the protest of the French par- 
liaments, 264; recalls M. Necker, 266; and 
the third estate, 267 ; and the States-general 
of, 1789, 267. 

Louisbourg, surrendered to France, 215. 

Louise of Savoy, 89; death of, 1531, 97. 

Louvois, Marquis de, and Turenne, 1 58 ; and 
the successes of Louis XIV., 160; harsh pol- 
icy of, in the palatinate, 161 ; death of, 173. 

Ludovic the Moor, duke of Milan, 84. 

Luther, Martin, 99. 

Luxembourg, John of, captures Joan of Arc, 
69. 

, Louis of, and Louis XL, TJ. 

; Marshal, 162, defeats William III. of 



England, 162 ; death of, 162. 
Luynes, Albert de, 133; and Richelieu, 135; 

and Louis XIII., 135. 
Lynar, Count, 227. 

Lyonness, conquered by the Burgundians, 29. 
Lyons the chief center of early Christianity in 

Gaul, 28, 29. 

Machault, M. de, 224, 226. 

Madras, captured by the French, 217 ; restored 

to the English, 218. 
Madrid, treaty of, between Francis I. and 

Charles V., 96. 
Maestricht invested, 1748, 215. 
Magna Charta, upheld by St. Louis, 52. 
Mahe, 217. 

Maillart and Marcel, 62. 
Maillebois, Marshal, 208. 
Maine's, the duke of, 194; and the Orleans 

regency, 198. 

, the duchess of, 198 ; arrested i( ~ 



Maintenon, Madame de, and Louis XIV., 175, 
190; and the persecution of the Reformers. 
161; and Racine, 186; and the death of 
Louis, 193 ; death of, 194. 

Maisonneuve, Paul de, 222. 

Malagrida burnt as a heretic, 233. 

Malebranche, 183. 

Malesherbes, L. de, called to the ministry by 
Turgot, 251 ; 

Malherbe, 147; his account of the assassina- 
tion of Henry IV., 132. 

Malouet, and the convocation of the States- 
general, 1789, 268. 

Malplaquet, the battle of, 1709, 166. 

Man with the iron mask, the, 189. 

Mansard, 188. 

Mantes, the conference of, 126. 

Marcel, Stephen, provost of the tradesmen of 
Paris, 61, 62. 

Marche, Count de la, defeated by St Louis, 
52. 



3^4 



INDEX. 



MARCUS AURELIUS. 

Marcus Aurelius, account of, 28. 
Marguerite of Austria betrothed to the Dau- 
phin Charles, 78 ; removed from France 

78- 
of Provence, wife of St. Louis IX., 44. 

de Valois beautiful character of, 89 ; 

the writings of, 99 ; death of, 102. 

Maria Theresa, 151, 156. 

Marriage dc Figaro, the, and its effects, 263. 

Marie Antoinette, 261. See Aiitoinetie. 

Marillac, Francis de, 136, 176. 

Marlborough, the duke of, and Blenheim, 163 ; 
checked by Villars, 164; and the battle of 
Ramilies, 164; defeats Vendome at Auden- 
arde, 165 ; and the battle of Malplaquet, 166; 
dismissed by Queen Anne, 167. 

Marsaglia, battle of, 161. 

Marsin, Marshal, at the battle of Blenheim, 
164. 

Martel, Charles, 32. 

Martyrs, the, of Lyons, 29. 

Mary, Queen, of England, and Philip IL of 
Spain, 104. 

of Burgundy weds the Archduke Maxi- 
milian, ']']. 

Masselin, John, character of, 80. 

Massillon, 183. 

Maupeou, M. de. Chancellor, and the fall of 
the parliament of Paris, 233, 234 ; dismissal 
and death of, 249. 

Maurepas, M. de, recalled by Louis XVL, 248. 

Maximilian, Archduke, weds Mary of Burgundy 
at Ghent, T] ; of Austria, and Anne of Brit- 
tany, 85. 

L, Emperor, and Louis XIL, 84; joins 

the Holy League, 85 ; and Henry VHL of 
England in France, death of, 92. 

Mayenne, the duke of, defeated by Henry IV. 
at Arques, 123; at Paris, 124; joins Henry 
IV., 127. 

Mayors, the, of the palace, 31. 

Mazarin, Cardinal, 145 ; recommended by Rich- 
elieu, 146 ; denounced by the parliament of 
Paris, 151 ; defeated and obliged to leave 
France, 152; his state-stroke, 153; becomes 
all-powerful, 153; concludes the peace of 
the Pyrenees, 154; death of, 155. 

Medici, Peter de', 81. 

, Queen Catherine de', 97, 106 ; character 

of, 109; and the St. Bartholomew, 112; and 
the death of Charles IX., 116 ; and the duke 
de Guise, 117. 

, Ferdinand de', 126. 

, Queen Mary de', marries Henry IV., 

131; regency of, 1610-1617, 133; her flight 
from Blois, 134; and Louis XIII., civil war 
between, 135. 

Mediterranean, pirates of the, 97. 

Melegnano, the battle of, 90. 

Mello, Don Francisco de, 150. 

Merovingian kings, 30, 31. 

Mesmer, 262. 

Messina gives herself up to France, 1 59. 



NAVARRE. 

Metz, the siege of, in 1552, 103; restored to 
France, 160. 

Mignard, 188. 

Milan, the duchy of, and Charles VIII., 83 ; 
siege of, raised by Gaston de Foix, 86. 

Milaness and Louis XIL, 83. 

Minden, the battle of, 1759, 229. 

Minorca captured by Admiral Leake, 165 ; cap- 
tured from the English, 1782, 257. 

Mirabeau, birth and character of, 267 ; and the 
revolution, 267 ; and M. Necker, 269 ; and the 
title of the States-general, 270. 

Missionaries, the first Christian, in Gaul, 28. 

Mississippi, the scheme of Law, 197. 

Molay, James de, grand master of the Templars, 
57. 

Mole, President, 151. 

Moliere, 187. 

Moncontour, battle of, 1569, 112. 

Monge, M., 262. 

Mons captured by Louis XIV., 162. 

Monseigneur, Grand Dauphin, 167. 

Monsieur s Peace, 1576, 118. 

Monsigny, musician, 249. 

Montaigne, Michael de, 146, 147. 

Montauban, siege of, 1621, 143. 

Montcalm, the marquis of, 223. 

Montecuculli, General, 159. 

Montespan, Madame de, and Louis XIV., 189. 

Montesquieu, 237 ; the works of, 237, 238. 

Montfort, John of, his war with Charles of Blois, 

Montgolfier, MM. de, 262. 

Montgomery, Count de, by accident mortally 

wounds King Henry IL, 105. 
Montlhery, engagement at, 73. 
Montluc, Blaise de, 103, no. 
Montmorency, Marshal de, death of, 237. 

, the Constable Anne de, 97, 102 ; wound- 



ed and captured at St. Quentin, 104. 
-, Henry, duke of, executed, 137, 



Montpensier, the duchess of, 127. 

, Mdlle. de, called the Great Mademoi- 



selle, and the Fronde, 152, 153. 
Montreal, capitulation of, 1760, 223. 
Monts, M. de, appointed viceroy of Acadia, 

221. 
Montsabert, M. de, arrest of, 265, 
Morat, defeat of Charles the Rash at, 'jS. 
Mornay, Du-Plessis, 121. 
Motte, Admirable de la, 257. 
Mounier, M., 266 ; and the Third Estate, 270. 
Miilhausen, fight of, 158. 

Nancy, defeat and death of Charles the Rash, 

75- 
Nantes, the edict of, 129; revoked by Louis 

XIV., 161 ; in 1685, 176. 
Naples and Louis XIL, 84. 
National Assembly, adopted as the style of the 

States-general, 270. 
Navarre, Anthony de Bourbon, king of, 108; 

death of, no. 



INDEX. 



365 



NAVARRE. 

Navarre, Charles the Bad of, 62. 

, Henry of, and Marguerite de Valois, 

113; and Henry HI., 117; becomes heir to 
the French throne, 118; and the murder of 
Henry HI., 120. 

-, Jeanne d'Albret, queen of, 112. 



Navy, the, and Richelieu, 140 ; the French, under 
Louis XV., 222, 225, 235. 

Necker, M., director-general of finance under 
Louis XVL, 260 ; financial administration of, 
260; resigns, 261 ; recalled by Louis XVL, 
266 ; in the States-general of 1789, 269. 

Nerac, the peace of, in 1579, 118. 

Neustria. kingdom of, 31. 

Nevers, Duke de, 145. 

Newfoundland, 222. 

New France, and Cardinal Richelieu, 220. 

Newton, 239. 

Nicopolis, battle of, 42. 

Nimeguen, the peace of, 160. 

Noailles, Cardinal de, and the Orleans regency, 
195. 

, Marshal, and the campaign of 1734, 

206; at Dettingen, 210. 

-, the duke of, and Law's schemes, 196. 



Nogaret, WiUiam de, 56. 

Norman, the, conquest of England, 40. 

Normandy, completely won back to France, 74 ; 
the revolt of, against the taxation of Louis 
Xni., 139 ; emigration of persecuted reform- 
ers, 177. 

Normans, the, and the discovery of America, 
220. 

North, Lord, 257. 

Northmen, the, 36. 

Notables, assembly of the, 263. 

Novara, battle of, 151 3, 88. 

Noyon, treaty of, 91. 

Nu-pieds, revolt of the, 1 39. 

Olier, M., 222. 

Omar captures Jerusalem, 43. 

Orange, William, the prince of, and Louis XIV., 

158; and the battle of Mons, 160; and the 

deputies of the estates, 1 59. 
Orders, the three, composing the States-general, 

58. 59- 
Orleans, the maid of (see Joan of Arc) ; the 
siege of, raised through the maid of Orleans, 
68 ; tribute of, to the memory of Joan of Arc, 

, Louis, duke of, death of, 65. 

Duke Gaston of, and Richelieu, 137 ; 

submission, retirement, and death of, 153. 
-, the regency of the duke of, 195 ; declares 



war with Spain, 1719, 200. 

- the regent, and the Scotch adventurer 



Law, 196; and the duchess of Maine's plot, 
198 ; and Dubois, 199; and Dubois as arch- 
bishop of Cambria, 202 ; and Belzunce, 202 ; 
death and character of, 203. 

-, the duke of, and Louis XVL, 250 ; and 



PHILIP VI. 

Ornano, Alphonso Corso d', 135. 

Ossat, Arnauld d'. 131. 

Otho IV., emperor of Germany, 49. 

Paderborn, Saxons baptized at, by Charle- 
magne, 34. 

Paganism, fall of, 29. 

Painters of the reign of Louis XIV., 187, 188. 

Palatinate, the, devastated by the French in 
1689, 161. 

Paoli, Pascal, the hero of Corsica, 235. 

Pare, Ambrose, 116. 

Paris, ancient name of, see Lutctia, 31, 53 ; the 
parliament of, and the concordat between 
Francis I. and Leo X., 92 ; revolt of the popu- 
lace of, 1588, 119; siege of, by Henry III., 
119; the parliament of, and the Bourbon 
pretender, 122 ; besieged by Henry IV., 123 ; 
N:he parliament of, and the edict of Nantes, 
129; and Louis XIIL, 138; and Mazarin, 
151; and the Fronde, 151, 152 ; the parlia- 
ment of, and its struggles with Fleury, 207 ; 
and Louis XV., 226, 233 ; the peace of, 1762, 
232 ; the parliament of, and the Jesuits, 233. 

Paris-Duverney, 204. 

Parker, Admiral Hyde, 257. 

Parliament, the, of Paris banished by Louis 
XV., 233 ; recalled by Louis XVL, 249 ; ar- 
rest of members of the, 1788, 264; protests 
of the, 264. 

Parma annexed by Francis I., 91. 

, Duke Alexander of, 124. 

•, the battle at, 207, 



Pascal, Blaise, 179, 182. 

Patay, the battle of, 69. 

Paul, St. Vincent de, 141. 

Pavia, the battle of, 100. 

People's Battle, the, of Bounnes, 49. 

Pepin of Landen, called The Ancictit, 32. 

of Heristal, his death, 32. 

the Short, 33. 



Peronne, treaty of, 75. 

Perrault, 188. 

Pescara, the marquis of, 94, 95. 

Peschiera, capture of, by Louis XIL, 86. 

Peter de la Brosse and Philip III., 54. 

the Great and Madame de Maintenon, 



193- 
Petigliano, Count, at the battle of Agnadello, 86. 
Philip I., 39. 

II., or Philip Augustus of France, 



joins in a new crusade, 43 ; at the battle of 
Bouvines, 49; and Agnes of Merania, 51; 
administrative acts of, 49 ; death of, 51. 
III. of France, surnamed the Bold, 53, 



the States-general of, 1789, 270. 



54- 
IV., called the Handsome, character of, 

54; and Pope Boniface VIIL, 55, 56, 57; 

death and character of, 57 ; the three sons 

of, 57. 

v., called the Long, 58. 

VI., or Philip of Valois, 60 ; death of, 



1350, 61. 



366 



INDEX. 



PHILIP II. 

Philip II., of Spain, 103, 104, 118, 128; death 

of, 129. 
IV,, of Spain, and the peace of the 

Pyrenees, 154. 
■ V. of Spain, 168 ; refuses to abdicate, 



Philosophers, the, of the reign of Louis XV., 
237-247. 

Phoenicians, the, 24. 

Piacenza annexed by Francis I., 91. 

Piedmont, and Charles VIII. of France, 81. 

Pitt, WilUam, returns to office, 228, 231. 

Plague of Florence, or the Black Plague, 162. 

, the, in France in 1719, 202. 

Plelo, Count, killed at Dantzic, 206. 

Plessis Mornay, Philip du. See Du Plessis-Mor- 
nay, 

Poitiers, battle near, A.D. 507, 30 ; great battle 
at, A.D. 732, 32. 

Poitou, 102. 

Poland, the crown of, offered to the duke of 
Anjou, 116; events preceding the partition 
of, 206 ; the partition of, 236. 

Policists, the, 125. 

Polignac, Madame de, 261. 

Poltrot, John, no. 

Ponts de Ce, engagement of, 135. 

Port-Royal des Champs, 141, 142, 179. 

Pothinus, St., first bishop of Lyons, 29. 

Pragmatic Sanction, its three principal objects, 
91. 

Praguery, the, 72. 

Protestants, the, after the massacre of St. Bar- 
tholomew, 115; persecutions of, under Louis 
XIV., 175, 180; under the Orleans regency, 
195. 

Protestantism in Louis XIV.'s reign, 176-180. 

Pyrenees, peace of the, 1659, 154. 

OuESNEL, Father, 179. 

Quietism, 174; and Madame de Maintenon, 173. 

Rabelais, Francois, 146. 

Racine, 186. 

Rambouillet, Hotel, meetings of the literati at, 

147. 
Ramus, Peter la Ramee, 146. 
Ravenna the battle of, 15 12, 87. 
Raymond VI.,. of Toulouse, 50. 

VII., of Toulouse, 51. 

Reformation, the, and Francis I., 99 ; state of 

the, in France in 1561, 105. 
Religious wars in France, outbreak of the, 107. 
War, outbreak of the Fourth, 1572, 

115. 
Renaissance, the age of the, 98. 
Rene, II,, king of Lorraine, and Louis XL, 76, 
Retz, Cardinal de, 185. 
Richard Coeur de Lion, in the Holy Land, 41, 

43. 
Richelieu, Armand John du Plessis de, bishop 

of Lucon (afterward cardinal), birth and 

early life of, 134; foreign policy of, 144; and 



SEPOYS. 

Gustavus Adolphus, 144 ; seventy-four treaties 
concluded by, 144 ; death of, 145 ; and Louis 
XIII, and literature, 146-150; his monument, 
and Peter the Great, 200. 

Richelieu, Marshal, captures Minorca, 229. 

Rigaud, 188. 

Robais, Van, 171. 

Robert, son of Hugh Capet, 39. 

Robertet, Florimond, and Francis L, 90. 

Rohan, Duke Henry of, 142 ; death of, 143, 

, the duchess of, and the siege of La 

Rochelle, 142, 

-, the Camisard, 178, 



Rolf (or Rollo), the Northman, 36, 
Roman Empire, final dissolution of, 30. 

customs and mianners forced on the 



Gauls, 27. 

States, the, settled on the popes, 33. 

victories over the Gauls, 27. 



Romans defeat the Gauls, 25. 

Rome plants colonies among the Gauls, 25. 

Ronsard, 146, 147. 

Rosbach, the battle of, 228, 

Rosebecque, battle of, 64, 

Rouault, Marshal Joachim, 75. 

Rouen, siege of, by Henry IV., 125. 

Rousseau, birth, character, and works of, 244. 

Roze, Chevalier, 202. 

Russia and the partition of Poland, 1772, 235. 

Ruyter, Admiral, 159. 

Ryswick, the peace of, 1697, 162, 163, 169, 

Saint Andre, Marshal de, 104 ; killed at the 

battle of Dreux, no. 
Saint Bartholomew, the massacre of, 114, 115. 
Saint Cyran, M, de, character and work of, 141, 

179- 
Saint Germain-en-Laye, the peace of, 112. 
Saint Germain, the duke of, 251. 
Saint Louis, or Louis IX., 44-52. 
Saint Omer kept by France, 159. 
Saint-Ouentin, captured by Philip II. of Spain, 

104. 
Saint Pierre, Bernardin de, Paul and Virginia, 

262. 
Saladin, Sultan, 42, 
Sales, St. Francis de, 147, 
Salic law, the, 58. 

Saracens, their invasion of Southern Gaul, 36. 
Sardinia, captured by Admiral Leake, 165. 
Savoy, Duke Charles of, and Charles VIII., 

81. 
Saxe, Marshal, character of, 212. 
Saxons, the, defeated by Charlemagne, 34. 
Saxony, Augustus II., 206. 
, conquered by Frederick the Great, 



Schomberg, Marshal, 177. 

Scudery and the Cid, 149. 

Seignelay, M. de, 174, 

Semblangay, Baron de, 93. 

Senegal settlements, the, ceded to France, 159. 

Sepoys, the, 217. 



INDEX. 



367 



SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 

Seven Years' War, outbreak of the, 226 ; end 
of the, 231. 

Sevigne, Madame de, 184. 

Sieyes, Abbe, and the Third Estate, 267, 270. 

Simon, count of Montfort I'Amaury, or Simon 
de Montfort, 50, 51. 

Sixteejt, the commitee of, 120, 125. 

Sluggard kings, the, 38. 

Soliman II., Sultan, 98. 

Sorbonne, the, and the reformation, 100 ; and 
Henry III., 120, 149 ; and Buffon, 243. 

Soubise, the duke of, captures the French fleet, 
142. 

, prince of, defeated at Rosbach, 228. 

Spain and France, treaty between, 231. 

Spinola, celebrated Spanish general, 145. 

-Stahrenberg, Count von, 167. 

Stafarde, battle of, 1698, 161. 

Stanhope, Lord, and the fall of Alberoni, 201. 

Stanislaus, King, 205 ; and the national party 
in Poland defeated, 207. 

States-general (see also estates-general), the 
first in French history, 56; assembled, 1367, 
63; convoked at Tours, Jan. 5, 1484, 80; 
convoked at Tours by Louis XII., 1506, 85 ; 
meeting of the, at Paris, 1527, 96; of 1560, 
108; meeting of the, at Blois, 1588, 118; of 
the League, 120; and Louis XIII., 134; of 
1789, 267. 

Strasburg captured by Louis XIV., 160, 162. 

Stuart, Mary, and Francis II., marriage of, 104. 

Suffren, Peter Andrew de, and French suc- 
cesses in the East Indies, 257, 259. 

Suger, Abbot of St. Denis, 42. 

Sully, character of, 130 ; and Mary de' Medici. 

133- 
Swiss, the, defeat Charles the Rash at Morat. 
76 ; defeated at Melegnano by the French, 90. 

Taillebourg, battle of, 113. 

Tallard, Count de, defeated 163. 

Talleyrand, Henry de, 136. 

Tavannes, Marshal de, and the Massacre of St. 

Bartholomew, 115. 
Taxation in France, tejnp. Louis XIV., 170; 

reforms of the Orleans regency, 196. 
Teligny, 114. 

Tellier, Le, and Louis XIV., 176. 
Tende, Count de, 115. 
Terray, Abbe, 234 ; dismissed by Louis XVI., 

248. 
Theresa, Maria (see also Maria), 208, 209, 

212. 
Thierr}^ IV., 31. 
Third Estate, the, and the Communes, 58 ; and 

French civilization, 59 ; and Louis XVL, 267. 
Thirty Years' War, end of the, 151. 
Thou, Nicholas de, executed, 137, 138. 
Tippoo Sahib, 258. 
Tobago, ceded to France, 259. 
Tolbiac, battle of, 30. 
Tremoille, Louis de la, and Anne de Beaujeu, 

80,84 



VOYSIN. 

Trianon, the Manor-House of, 261. 

Triple Alliance, the, signed at the Hag^e, 1 56, 

199. 
Trivulzio, John James, and Louis XII., 83. 
Truce of God, the, 39. 
Tuileries, the, and Louis XIV., 172. 
Turckheim, fight of, 158. 
Turenne, Viscount de, 150, 158. 
, M. de, and Louvois, 172. 



Turgot, M., the ministry of, and Louis XVL, 
249 ; acts of his ministry, 250, 251 ; dismissed 
by Louis XVL, 253. 

Turin, the siege of, 1706, 164. 

Tuscany, the grand duke of, proclaimed Em- 
peror as Francis I., 209. 

Ultramontanes, the, 141. 
Unigenitus, the bull, 180. 
Uftioft, the, of the sixteenth century, 117. 
United Provinces, the, and Richelieu, 142. 
United States of America, and the War of In- 
dependence, 254, 259. 
Ursins, the Princess des, 191. 
Utrecht, the treaty of, 1712, i6i. 
Uzes, 178. 

Valenciennes, capture of, 159. 
Valois, Joan of, 75. 

, Prince Henry of, son of Francis I., 97. 

•, Marguerite de. 



Valteline, the war in the, 143, 144. 

Vauban, the celebrated engineer, his work and 
Louis XIV., 156, 162, 164, 173. 

Vaudians, massacre of the, loi. 

Vaux, Marshal, 265. 

Vendome, the duke of, 163 ; defeated by Marl- 
borough, 165 ; sent to the aid of Philip V. of 
Spain, 166. 

Venetians, the, and Louis XII., 85 ; defeat of, 
85. 

Ventadour, Madame de, 195. 

Vercingetorix 27. 

Verdun, the treaty of, 37. 

Vergennes, M. de, 254, 255. 

Versailles, the palace of, built by Louis XIV., 
172. 

Ver\ans, peace of, between France and Spain, 
129. 

Vienna, the peace of, 1735, 207. 

Villars, Andrew de Brancas, lord of, 127. 

, Marshal, 164, 165 ; and the battle of 



Malplaquet, 165 ; and the battle of Denain, 
169 ; and the revolt of the Camisards, 178. 
Villeroi, Nicholas de Neufville, lord of, charac- 
ter of, 127, 131. 

•, Marshal, 163, 164 ; defeated by Marl- 



borough, 164. 
Visigoths, the, 29. 
Viterbo, the treaty of, between Francis I. and 

Pope Leo X., 92. 
Vivonne, the duke of, 159. 
Voltaire, 226, 238, 241, 242. 
Voysin, Chancellor, 166, 174, 196. 



368 



INDEX. 



WALDENSIANS. 

Waldensians. See Vaudians. 

Walpole, Robert, and Fleury, 205. 

Warsaw, the treaty of, 235. 

Washington, his mistrust of French aid to 

America, 254 ; and La Fayette, 255. 
Westphalia, the peace of, and its consequences, 

151, 160. 
William of Normandy, the conqueror, 41. 
William the Silent, prince of Orange, 104. 
III. of England, and the treaty of Rys- 

wick, 162. 
Witt, John and Cornelius van, assassinated, 158. 



ZEALAND. 

Wolfe, General, and the siege of Quebec, 223, 
World, end of the, expected, a.d. iooo, 39. 
Worms, general assembly, a.d. 839, 36. 

XiMENES and Francis L, 90. 

Ypres, taken by Louis XIV., 159. 

Zachary, Pope, 33. 

Zwingle, 99, 100. 

Zealand, a Genoan fleet arrives at, 55. 



INDEX TO THE CONTINUATION TO THE HISTORY 

OF FRANCE. 



ABBOTT. 

Abbot, Speaker, entries in diary of, 302. 
Aboukir, naval battle of, 284. 

, land battle of, 284. 

Acre, Napoleon I. at, 284. 

Alexander of Russia and Napoleon at Tilsit, 

291 ; Russian campaign, 293, 301 ; alliance 

vi'ith Frederick William, 299. 
Alexandria, Napoleon in, 283. 
Algiers, capture of, 314. 
Ali, Mehemet, 326. 
Alliance, the Holy, 309. 
Allied pow^ers' treaty with France, 307. 
Alma, the battle of, 338. 
Alvinzi, Marshal, 283. 
Amar, 275. 

Amiens, treaty of, 1802, 285. 
Angouleme, Duke de, 309. 
Antoinette, Marie, 273, 274. 
Arabi Bey, 248. 
Areola, battle of, 283, 
Aumale, Due d', 327, 
Auerstadt, battle of, 291. 
Austerlitz, battle of, 288, 289. 
Austria prepares for war, 292 ; joins the alliance 

against France, 300. 

Balaklava, battle of, 338. 

Barras, Count Paul Jean Francois Nicolas, 279 ; 

and the Directory, 281 ; and Napoleon, 282. 
Barrot, M. OdiUion, 332. 
Bassano, battle of, 283. 
Bastile, destruction of, 272. 
Bautzen, battle of, 300. 
Bavaria, Augusta of, the wife of Eugene Beau- 

harnais, king of Italy, 289; the king of, 

joins the alliance against France, 300. 
Beauharnais, Eugene, 289. 
Berlin decrees, 291, 294, 295 ; Napoleon in,300. 
Bernadotte, Marshal, and Sweden, 294 ; crown 

prince of Sweden at Lausberg, 300. 
Beranger, 311. 



CHRISTIANITY. 

Berri, duke of, 309. 

Bienhoa conquered, 340. 

Billermarri, attempt on life of Napoleon III.,. 
338. 

Blanc, Louis, 333 ; death of, 348. 

Blucher at Lubeck, 291 ; desires to kill Napoleon,. 
306, 307 ; in Paris, 307. 

Bonaparte, family of, 289 ; excluded from the. 
Holy Alliance, 309. 

Bonaparte, Joseph, king of Naples, 289 ; ex- 
changes Naples for Spain, 291. 

Bonaparte, Jerome, king of Westphalia, 291. 

Bordeaux, duke of, 310 ; riots in, 341. 

Bourguency, Baron de, 326. 

Bourrienne and Napoleon I., 280. 

Brienne, battle of, 303. 

Brissot party, 274. 

Brunswick, duke of, victorious, 275. 

Bugeaud, Marshal, 332. 

Bugot, 275. 

Caln taken by revolutionists, 275. 

Cadoudal, George, 286. 

Cambronne sunk, 346. 

Campbell, Lord, on Napoleon I., 306. 

Campo Formio, treaty of, 283. 

Cannes, Napoleon I. lands at, 302. 

Canzy, General, 349. 

Carnot and the Directory, 281. 

Cassock and the French, 298. 

Cathelemeau, 276. 

Cavaignac, General, 333 ; declared dictator,. 

334 ; and Napoleon I., 338 ; death of, 388. 
Censorship of the press under Louis XVIII.,. 

311- 
Chalons outbreak suppressed, 338. 
Charles, archduke of Austria, retreat of, 283 ?, 

the war with Napoleon I., 292. 
Charles, count of Artois, 309. 
Charles X., 312, 313, 314, 315, 318, 319. 
Christianity in the Reign of Terror, 277. 



INDEX. 



CHRISTINA. 

Christina, queen of Spain, 329. 

Chouans, the, 276. 

Cochin China, six provinces of, conquered, 340. 

Code, the Napoleon, 285. 

Commerce of France destroyed, 286. 

Communists of 1871, 343; demands of in 1883, 

351- . 
Concordat, the, 285. 
Concord, the temple of, 302. 
Condorcet, 275. 

Confederation of the Rhine, 290, 294. 
Consul for life, 286. 
Consulate, the, 284. 
Convention, the, 277, 279, 280. 
Corday, Charlotte, murders Murat, 277 ; death 

of, 278. 
Courier, 311. 
Crimean War, 337, 338, 339. 

Danton, Georgies-Jacques, 279. 

Davidowich, General, 283. 

Days, the hundred, from March 13, to June 20, 

181 5, 302-307. 
Denis, M., minister of justice, 351. 
Denmark and Napoleon I., 294. 
Dennewitz, battle of, 300. 
Deputies, chambers of, and Charles X., 313. 
Directory, the, its character and acts, 281-284. 
Dore, Gustave, death of, 350. 
Dresden taken by Napoleon, 300. 
Ducos, 274. 
Dumouriez driven by the Prussians, 375. 

ECHMUHL, battle of, 292. 

Egyptian War, 247, 248. 

Elba, Napoleon sent to, 300; escaped from, 
301. 

Elizabeth, Madam, and Marie Antoinette, 276. 

Enghien, duke of D', murdered, 286. 

England, declares war against the Republic, 
276 ; threatened invasion of, 286 ; threatened 
war with Louis Philippe, 303 ; objects to 
Spanish marriages, 328 ; feeling of at the 
coup d'etat of Napoleon III., 334-337. 

"Enough of Bonaparte," 300. 

Erfurt, surrender of, 291. 

Eugenie, Empress, regent, 339 ; return to Paris, 

350- 
Eugene, Prince, death of, 344. 
Eylau, battle of, 291. 

Falliers, M., bill of, 350. 

Family statute of Napoleon, 290, 

Favre, Jules, 345. 

Ferry, Jules, education bill of, 345 ; resigns, 
346; forms new ministry, 351. 

Ferdinand VII. restored to the throne of Spain, 
310, 311. 

Feudal and manorial rights abolished, 272. 

Fieschi's attempt to kill the king, 321. 

Fould, Achille, removed, 339. 

France, first coalition against, 275 ; second coa- 
lition, 276; position of in 1802, 285; under 



KAIRWAN. 

the consulate, 384-387 ; commerce destroy 
286; third coalition, 288; condition in ' 
310; evacuated by English, 310; inv 
of Spain, 310. 

Franco-Prussian War, battles of, 341-342. 

Frederick William and Napoleon I., 299. 

Freycinet, 247. 

Friedland, battle of, 291. 

Funeral of Napoleon I., 327. 

Gaeta, capture of, 289. 

Gambetta, president of the chambers, 345 ; 
prime minister, 346 ; and the Egyptian War, 
348 ; death of, 348 ; cause of death, 349. 

Garibaldi, 339. 

Gaudet, 274 ; proscribed, 276. 

Gensonne, 274. 

Germany, the empire not recognized by Napo- 
leon, 290 ; feeling in at the close of Russian 
campaign, 298, 299 ; all Germany rises against 
France, 300. 

Ghent, treaty of, 302. 

Girondists, 274-275. 

Goddess of Reason, 277. 

Gramont, Due de, 345. 

Granveuve, 274. 

Granville, Lord, 346. 

Grevyr, President, 344, 349, 351. 

Gross-Buren, battle of, 300. 

Guillotine, victims of, 277. 

Guizot, M., on Polignac, 313; and Casimer 
Perier, 315 ; in the cabinet of Louis Philippe, 
320; and Napoleon III., 322; ambassador 
to England, 323 ; return to France, 323 ; and 
Napoleon III., 324; return to England, 326; 
and the treaty of July 15, 326 ; return to the 
cabinet, 327 ; and Sir Robert Peel, 327 ; and 
the Spanish marriages, 328 ; and the revolu- 
tion of 1848, 331 ; retires from the cabinet, 
331- 

Halle, battle of, 291. 
Hoche, General, 276. 
Hohenlohe, General, 291. 
Hofer, Andrew, execution of, 293. 

Industrial Exhibition of 1855, 338; of 

1867, 341. 
Internal administration of the empire, 290. 
Isabella of Spain, 330. 
Italy, kingdom of, 189 ; treaty of France with, 

340 ; convention with, 341. 

Jacobins, 274. 

Japan, treaty with, 340. 

Jenna, battle of, 291. 

Jesuits, e.xpulsion of the, 347. 

Josephine crowned, 288 ; divorced, 293. 

Joseph Louis Philippe, duke of Orleans, before 

the tribunal of Paris. 279. 
Journal de la Republique, 2^7. 

Kairwan occupied, 346. 



INDEX. 



ZBACH. 

300. 

e army of the Rhine, 275 ; 



a£ joins Napoleon III., 304; escape 

uiayette on Napoleon III., 306 ; elected to 
the chambers, 309 ; and Martignac, 313 ; and 
the three days of July, 317. 

Lafitte and Marshal Marmont, 316; removed, 
320. 

La Lune, battle of, 275. 

Lamartine, his popularity on the wane, 333, 

Larochjacquelein, 276. 

La Vendee, insurrection in, 276. 

Leipzig taken by Napoleon III., 300. 

Legion of Honor established, 286. 

Legislative assembly, 274. 

Leopold of Hohenzollern and the Spanish mar- 
riage, 330; and Spain, 341. 

Lepeaux and the Directory, 281. 

Lesseps, De, and his achievements, 342. 

Letourmeue and the Directory, 281. 

Lobau, battle of, 292. 

Lodi, battle of, 282. 

Longroy, capture of, 275. 

Louis XVI., 273, 274, 275, 276. 

Louis XVII. and Barras, 280. 

Louis XVIII., 301, 308, 309, 310, 311, 312. 

Louise, Maria, of Austria, marries Napoleon I., 
293 ; birth of Napoleon II., 293. 

Louis Ferdinand, prince of Russia, killed, 291. 

Louis Philippe, 319, 320, 321, 325, 327, 328, 

329. 331. 332. 
Louvet, 309, 

Lubeck surrendered, 291. 
Luneville, treaty of, 285, 
Lutzen, battle of, 299. 

Mac Mahon, President, 343 ; resigns, 343. 

Madrid occupied by Napoleon I., 292. 

Malakoff, battle of, 338. 

Mamelukes, defeat of, 283. 

Mantua, siege of, raised, 283. 

Marat, Paul Jean, 277. 

Marchaud, General, joins Napoleon I., 304. 

Marmont, Marshal, and Lafitte, 316 ; and Polig- 

nac, 316. 
Martignac, De, and Charles X., 313 ; and Polig- 

nac, 315. 
Massina in Naples, 289. 
MaximiHan, king of Mexico, 340 ; death of 

340. 
McCarthy, Justin, extracts from, 327, 334, 
Marengo, battle of, 285. 
Mexico and France, 339, 340. 
Milan, Napoleon I. in, 282 ; occupied, 285, 
Mirabeau, 273, 274, 278. 
Mondiridi, battle of, 282. 
Montenotte, battle of, 282. 
Montig, Mdlle. de, marries Napoleon I., 334. 
Montpensier, Due de, 327. 
Moore, Sir John, in Spain, 292. 



PROVISIONAL. 

Moreau in Paris, 282 ; army of the Rhine, 285. 

Mortier killed, 321. 

Moscow, the Russians retreat to, 296 ; Napo- 
leon I. arrives at, 297 ; burning of, 297 ; Na- 
poleon retires from the city, 297 ; evacuated 
by the French, 298. 

Murat, Joachim, given Cleves, 290 ; appointed 
king of Naples, 294. 

Naples, war against, 289 ; Joseph Bonaparte, 
kmg of, 289 ; Joachim Murat, king of, 294. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, birth of, 280 ; his career, 
280-307; death of, 310; civil government oi, 
285 ; consul for life, 286 ; his opinion of the 
treaty, 308 ; his remains removed to France, 
324; interred in the church of the Invalides, 
327- 

Napoleon II., birth of, 294 ; death of, 320. 

Napoleon III., 321-343; absolutism, 337; Cri- 
mean War began, 337. 

Napoleon column, 325. 

National assembly, acts of, 272 ; removed to 
Paris and dissolved, 274. 

National Guard convoked, 272 ; and Louis Na- 
poleon, 325 ; and the revolution of 1848, 331. 

Necker recalled by Louis XVI., 272. 

Nelson, Admiral, death of, 289. 

Ney, Marshal, at battle of Dennewitz, 300; 
joins the emperor, 303 ; executed, 309. 

New Orleans, battle of, 302. 

O'Meara and Napoleon I., 308. 

Orleans, duke of, Louis Philippe Joseph, execu- 
tion of, 279. 

Orleans, duke of, and Charles X., 313 ; and De 
Salvandy, 313 ; called to the government by 
the deputies, 317; accepts the crown, 319. 
See Louz's Philippe. 

Orleans, Duchess, regent, 332. 

Orsini's attempt on life of Napoleon III., 338. 

Palais Royal sacked, 332. 

Palmerston, Lord, and Thiero, 323 ; visit to Na- 
poleon III., 326 ; return to the cabinet, 330. 

Paoli, General, 280. 

Paris, rising of the arrondissements of, in 1795 ; 
282; the allies before, 301 ; occupied by the 
allied armies, 307; the revolution of 1848, 
333; and Charles X., 314, 315; fight in the 
streets of, 315. 

Pages, Garnier, 333. 

Peel, Sir Robert, 313. 

Petion, 275. 

Piamri's attempt on the life of Napoleon III., 
338. 

Pechegru, Charles, 287. 

Plon-Plon, Prince Napoleon, 350 ; in London, 
351- 

Pohgnac, Jules de, president of the council, 
313; and Martignac, 315. 

Presburg, treaty of, its effect on Germany, 290. 

Proclamation of July 31, 1830, 317. 

Provisional government of 1871, 333. 



INDEX. 



i7i 



PRUSSIA. 

Prussia and France declare war, 291 ; fall of 
Prussia, 291 ; renewal of public spirit in, 299; 
alliance with Russia against Napoleon I., 
300; refusal of the demands of Napoleon 
III., 341 ; war with France and its pretext, 
341 ; South German States unite in the war, 
341 ; results of the war, 342. 

Public safety, committee of, 277. 

Priggelier, Captain, 325. 

Putlask, battle of, 291. 

Pyramids, battle of, 283. 

Reign of Terror, 276 ; close of, 279. 

Republican armies defeat the allies, 278. 

Republican Kallender, note on, 271 ; replaced 
by Gregorian, 290. 

Republic, the new, 343-351. 

Revolution of 1848, 331-337. 

Rewbel and the directory, 281. 

Richelieu, duke of, recalled to the ministry, 
310. 

Rochefort and Roustan, 346. 

Robespierre and the Jacobins, 274, 277, 279, 
280. 

Roland, Madame, execution of, 279. 

Rome, king of. Napoleon II., his birth, 294. 

Rome evacuated, 341. 

Rostopchin, governor of Moscow, 297. 

Roustan and Rochefort, 346. 

Russia and Napoleon I., 291 ; secret treaty at 
Tilsit, 291 ; treaty with Sweden, 295 ; war 
with France begins, 295 ; ambassador at 
Paris dismissed, 295 ; spirit of the army, 296 ; 
retreat to Moscow, 296 ; burning of the city 
and retreat of the French, 297 ; alliance with 
Prussia, 300. 

Saalfield, battle of, 291. 

Sardinia and France unite against Austria, 339. 

Scrutin de liste, 346, 347. 

Sebour, bishop of Paris, assassinated, 338. 

Senatus consultus, 286. 

Sevastopol, battle of, 338. 

Sieyes, Abbe, and the Directory, 281. 

Smolensk, battle of, 296. 

Spain and France, peace of 1795, 285 ; French 

defeated in, 300 ; Spanish marriages, 327. 
Sprandau fortified by the Prussians, 291. 
Stephens, Professor, and Bernadotte, 300, 301 ; 

and the French marriages, 327. 
Sweden, treaty with, 341. 

Tahiti, difficulty between France and Eng- 
land over, 326. 

Talleyrand at the council, 308 ; against capital 
punishment, 308 ; and Louis XVIII., 309. 

Terror, reign of, begins, 277. 



ZULU WAR, 

Thiers quoted, 294 ; president of council, 
and England, 323; return to the cab 
332 ; president of Republic, 343 ; resigi.^ 
343 ; death of, 344. 

Tilsit, treaty of, 291. 

Toulon, siege of, by revolutionists, 279. 

Trafalgar, French defeat at, 289. 

Tribunate abolished, 291. 

Tuileries, defended by Napoleon, 282 ; Napo- 
leon's return to, 304; assailed in 1848, 332. 

Tunis and France, 346. 

Tyrol, the French in the, 293. 

Ukase, the, of Alexander, 295. 
Ulm, surrender of, to Napoleon, 295 
United States and the treaty of Ghent, 302 ; 
and the Mexican expedition, 339. 

Valaze, 275. 

Valdau, General Horise de, 350. 

Valmy, the Prussian advance arrested at, 275. 

Vandamme defeated, 300. 

Venetia ceded to France, 341. 

Verginy, De, killed, 321. 

Verniaud, 274. 

Verdun, capture of, 275. 

Victor Emanuel and Napoleon III., 339. 

Victory, Queen, 327, 328, 329, 338. 

Vienna occupied by Napoleon, 292 ; treaty of, 

293- 
Villafranca, treaty of, 339. 
Ville, Hotel de, 333. 
Villele, De, 311; his career under Louis XVIII. 

and Charles X., 312; character of, 313. 
Villeneuve, 289. 

Wachau, battle of, 300. 

Wagram, battle of, 293. 

Waterloo, battle of, 304, 305. 

Wellesly, Marquis, quoted, 294. 

Wellington and Waterloo, 304, 305 ; first learns 
of Napoleon's escape, 302 ; at Brussels, April 
4th, 1815,303; at Waterloo, 304, 305; the 
influence of, saves the life of Napoleon I., 
306; interview of the wife of General Ney 
with, 309 ; influence in the French cabinet, 
313 ; and the new revolution, 320. 

Westphalia, kingdom of, 291 ; submits to Na- 
poleon I., 294. 

Wimphen, General, and the mob, 275. 

Wimereaux, fiasco at, 325. 

Woronow, burned by the governor of Moscow> 
297. 

Wurmser defeated, 283. 

' Zulu war and Prince Eugene, 344, 345. 



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